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AS A NATION, 



AND 



THE NE^^^ ERA 



IN 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 



FREEMAN oTwiLLEY. 



V^\OFCO 






^^ WASHING 




INDIANAPOLIS: 

at. R. DURFORD, PRINTER AND BIN'DKK. 
1884- 



DEDICATION. 



If, through the influence of this book, one 
nobler thought wings its way to a human soul, 
or one brighter hope lightens the step of toil, 
let a large share of the praise be bestowed upon 
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Daniel 
Webster, Abraham Lincoln and Horace 
Greeley, the spirit of whose political speeches 
and writings, has done so much to mould the 
opinions and strengthen the purpose of the 
writer. 

To the sacred memory and broad statesman- 
ship of these grand and illustrious men, this 
volume is gratefully dedicated 

By the Author. 



PREFACE. 



In the year 1876 a very intelligent and pa- 
triotic old gentleman said to me that schemes 
were in embryo to impoverish the peop'e and 
centralize the power of the government in the 
interest of the few. I listened to his state- 
ments and arguments, which, at the time, 
seemed impossible to be founded in fact, but 
which, if true, were thunderbolts. 

I parted with the old man, having promised 
him that I would study the subject. I did study 
the subject, and it opened a new world of 
thought to me. I found his statement of facts 
to be true, and his arguments as irresistible as 
the torrent of Niagara. 

Now, my purpose is to make others under- 
stand those startling truths and feel their mighty 
force. ' In order to do this, I have proceeded 
by methods peculiarly my own. 

The reader will observe that I do not charge 
all the political sins to any one party. Neither 



VI PREFACE. 

do I ask him to vote with any particular polit- 
ical organization. But I do ask him to study 
and understand certain economic principles 
which underlie our structure of government, 
and upon which our prosperity as a people and 
our continued existence as a republic depends. 

There is something radically wrong some- 
where, when those who work most get least, 
and those who work least get most. This fact 
forces itself home, to every thoughtful mind. 

That there is more, in this volume, calculated 
to show the people where that wrong is, than 
is contained in any other book yet written on 
the subject, I verily believe. I therefore send 
it forth in the hope that it may help to arouse 
the nation to a sense of the danorer that en- 
virons it, lest it slumber past the hour when 
salvation is possible. 

Freeman O. Willey. 



CONTENTS 



Development of the subject 3 

The attempt to place capital above labor successful 9 

The bill authorizing the issue of greenbacks 11 

How there came to be a premium on gold 14 

Effect of the exception clause upon individuals 16 

Greenbacks purposely depreciated 19 

Capitalists trebling their income 20 

Judge Kelley on the effect of the exception clause ..... 21 
Second instance of placing capital above labor in the struc- 
ture of the Government 22 

Oliver P. Morton quoted 23 

Ben. Wade's letter of 1867 24 

The gold gambler's honest dollar 24 

The speculator in gold the only one that demanded gold . . 28 

Shylock makes the country's necessity his opportunity ... 29 

Despotic power of the money kings 30 

Banks control the price of commodities 30 

Banker's Magazine quoted . . 32 

Senator Morrill, of Vermont, quoted ; 32 

Bankers' Magazine on the re-issue of forty-four millions of 

greenbacks 33 

The law of supply and demand 34 

John Stuart Mill and Eioardo quoted 35 

Panics and hard times the result of a contraction of the cur- 
rency 36 

Professor F. A. Walker, of Yale College, quoted 36 

Shylock's cause and remedy for panics and hard times ... 37 

John A. Logan on the contraction of the circulating medium 38 

How the currency was contracted oS 

John Shernnan quoted on the result of contraction ..... 40 

Senator Ferry, 6i Michigan, quoted . 42 



VIII INDEX. 

Eeport of the committee appointed to inquire into the cause 

of hard times 44 

Bankers' Magazine on contraction ............ 45 

Agricultural— report of prices ^ 46 

Jones and Strait, illustrating the danger and cruelty of our 

untaxable bond system 51 

Tax on the necessaries of life 55 

Congressman Kellogg quoted 69 

The farmers' outlook 70 

New York Times on farming 74 

The amount of American land in the hands of foreign despots 77 

Railroads and the people 81 

Great achievements 82 

Avarice the moving principle 85 

The railroads threatening the Supreme Court ....... 88 

Lands in possession of railroads 92 

Civilized bulldozing. ..•*.... 100 

Robert IngersoU quoted . 101 

The Senate committee on bulldozing 105 

The condition of laborers in Rhode Island 109 

The Senate committee refuses to recommend legislation for 

the relief for the oppressed 116 

The Louisiana count 123 

The Supreme Court decides that the Government can not cross 

State lines to protect voters 125 

Lincoln on capital and labor 127 

Senator Sharon quoted. 128 

Richmond (Va.) State and Boston Herald indorse bulldozing 129 

More on the fatal drift of legislation 131 

Ernest Seyd, author of the bill demonetizing silver 131 

British 8tatesman*hip 132 

High bonds 135 

Gen. Grant on silver 137 

Grant's letter to Judge Long J 38 

Anti-R( publican sentiments of the New York Tribune . . . 140 

New York World on the Araericaiij^aborer 142 

Dr. Btllow's testimony 143 

Lincoln's warning again 145 

President Arthur's favorable remarks on lift?; tenure of oflSce . 146 



INDEX. IX 

PART SECOND. 



The Eemedy 152 

Abbott on Jefferson 154 

Bancroft on the United States Congress 155 

The land grant . . . .^ 155 

John Sherman on paying the five-twenty bonds in greenbacks 157 

John Sherman again on contraction 159 

Jefferson's plan 160 

First plank of the new platform 161 

Second plank in the new platform 163 

Third plank in the new platform 168 

Facts worthy of careful consideration, by Peter Cooper . . . 169 

Number of banks in the United States and their capital, etc. . 169 

Earl Williams on government money 172 

The Commercial Advertiser on centralization of wealth ... 173 

Failures of national banks 175 

High rates of interest destructive to liberty 177 

Legal tender money 180 

The Comptroller's admission 181 

The necessity for a large volume of money 183 

Authorities supporting my position 185 

The Bankers' Magazine on specie basis 188 

The Bankers' Magazine on the cause of hard times in Europe 189 

Banker Thompson on the sign of a panic 190 

Should specie leave the country would it harm us 193 

Our demand notes 196 

Our demand notes in Europe 197 

Senator Logan on the price of gold 199 

American Cyclopaedia on the price of gold 203 

The law makes money 206 

Supreme Court on what makes money 207 

Why money pays debts 212 

Judge Tiffany on coining money 213 

John Sherman on the power of the Government to make 

money 217 

American Cyclopredia quoted on what money is! 218 

The advantage of a paper money system 221 

Authorities onthe advantages of a paper money system . . . 222 



X INDEX. 

The Bank of England 226.! 

Specie resumption 229! 

The way to make paper money excliangeable for specie . . • ?-^l^ 

The value of legal ttnder quality of money 233! 

The legal tender quality of the greenback threatened .... 236; 

Sumntr and others on the power of the Government to issue \ 

mont^y and make it a legal tender 238^ 

Is the theory that the Government can is^ue money to the peo- 
ple new ? 246 

Dr. Frjinklin originated the theory of government money in 

the United States 247 

Franklin's Essay on Money 250 

Gillett's comments on the adoption of Franklin's, system of 

money 267 

Two systems of loaning money— difierence in the cost to the 

people .' 274 

Abbv>tt's Life of Benjamin Franklin quoted on the prosperity 
of Pennsylvania during the period Franklin's system 

prevailed 277 

John Thompson's speech on specie basis at the Banker's Con- 
vention in Louisville, Ky 278 

David Hume on enlarging the volue of money 281 

Mr. Jevons, of Owtns University, England, on the same . . 282 

Fourth plank in the new platform 285 

Plumb on iinance 285 

Fifth plank in the new platform 290 

The veto power in Switzerland 292 

Difference between Washington and Grant . 298 

Why republics fall — the law-making power too far from the 

people 300 

The effect of the new policy upon the individual 302 

An Iowa soldier in reference 10 Mrs. Garfield 303 

Mrs. Garfield's condition compared with that of the soldier's 

widow 304 

The national banking system again 307 

The national banker and Farmer Towsides 308 

Horace Greeley on national banks 317 

Greeley's letter of 1872, on the freedom of the slave . . . . 318! 

Why Greeley was defeated for the Presidency 318 

Another illustration of the power of banks over the people . 319 

Formation of a new party necessary 321; 

The most important question — shall capital continue to rule \ 

the American people 322' 

Quotation from Jefferson 323 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 
AS A NATION. 



No graver question ever confronted the 
American people than the one which forms 
the subject for discussion in these pages. Nor 
did a question of greater magnitude ever trem- 
ble upon the lips of liberty's friends in other 
climes. On every sea, neath every sky. and in 
every land pressed by the foot of civilized man, 
the thoughtful student of history, the careful 
watcher of transpiring events, the jealous friend 
of republican liberty, feels a deep and solemn 
interest in the drift and final destiny of this Re- 
public. Every step of our material progress 
has been traced and marked by them. What 
a picture for them to scan, what a theme for 
them to dwell upon. With the eye of history 
follow that spark from liberty's forge, fanned 
and blown by the winds of heaven across the 
sea. It lighted on Plymouth Rock, and for a 
while shone dimly around that now renowned 
spot. Gradually it spread its light till 1775, 



4 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

when the Declaration of American Independ- 
ence gave it a new inspiration, and sent its 
fructifying rays far and wide over the continent. 
Weary toil took courage and quickened her 
pace. The artisan performed his daily task 
with brighter hopes. The plowman followed 
his plow with better cheer. The woodman 
seized his axe with renewed vigor. And New 
England forests, that had defied the storms and 
thunderbolts of centuries, now came crashing 
to the earth before the determined blows of 
resolute freemen. And New England hills, 
that hitherto had heard only the sullen roar of 
the passing gale, were soon charmed with the 
sweet melody of the church choir. Her valleys, 
that hitherto had sheltered only the beast and 
the savage, v/ere soon transformed into busy 
marts of commerce and swarming with civil- 
ized humanity, the genius of liberty leading the 
way. The enterprising sons of New England 
and the oppressed lovers of liberty from the 
old world, bent their steps toward the unculti- 
vated fields of the West. And her broad prairies, 
silent but for the howl of the wolf, pathless but 
for the trail of the savage, were soon dotted 
with happy homes and blooming with golden 
harvests. Contemplate the Mississippi Valley, 
as seen through the eyes of history, even fifty 



AS A NATION. . 5 

years ago. Then contemplate it as we see it 
now. 

Then the great Father of Rivers yielded 
his banks to the deer and buffalo, and his bosom 
to the canoe of the savage. Indeed, fifty years 
ago, the Mississippi River seemed to have no 
mission but to leap St. Anthony and roll silent- 
ly on, to lose itself in the stormy waters of the 
great Atlantic. Since then, the enterprise gen- 
erated by free institutions has driven the deer 
and buffalo to regions more remote, and made 
the banks and valleys where they once disport- 
ed, thrill and glow with civilization. The savage 
has packed his canoe to distant waters, and 
left the grand old river, bearing the product of 
great States on its bosom to the sea. 

All this, and much more may be said of our 
material progress in the last century. Nor has 
our growth been less wonderful in a mental 
and spiritual point of view. Great ideas are 
the power that moves the world in the right 
direction; their birth in the mind is sure to be 
followed by clearer perceptions of duty, and 
broader views of human and individual riohts. 

The last century has been fruitful of noble 
and elevating ideas. Under their inspiration 
the yue laws of Connecticut, and those of a 
similar character throucrhout the United States, 



6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

have all been repealed, or become a dead let- 
ter upon the statute books. The people have 
strode past them, and the mental condition 
that produced them has been almost entirely 
outgrown. A great idea smote the shackles 
of the slave and sent him bounding as free as 
the God that made him. And the colored 
American now rejoices in the proud ownership 
of his own bone and muscle. 

In all that is encouraging and elevating in 
spiritual and material growth, in the aggregate, 
our country may rejoice. The forces have 
been at work that produce such results. But 
other and opposing forces have been at work, 
also. Noiselessly, perhaps, yet all the more 
effectively. Their power and influence over 
the prosperity, happiness, and final destiny of 
the American Republic must necessarily con- 
stitute a prominent feature of this discussion. 
Two classes of minds have always been prom- 
inent and powerful in American affairs. One 
class high, elevated, unselfish; caring more for 
humanity and less for seU" and money. The 
other selfish, grasping, avaricious; caring every- 
thing for self and money, and little or nothing 
for humanity. The latter class, by deception 
and intrigue, have gained the leadership of the 
two old political parties in this country and are 



AS A NATION. 7 

not only (as Wendell Phillips has said) *' mas- 
querading in the grave clothes of honored an- 
cestors," but they are controlling the press and 
the main avenues of intelligence, and hood- 
winking the people into the support of meas- 
ures and systems which must, ere long, central- 
ize the wealth of the nation in the hands of the 
few, reduce the laboring and producing classes 
to a condition of serfdom, and finally plunge 
our country into the horrors of war or perpet- 
ual despotism. 

That you may not deem me insane or incon- 
siderate, in my conclusions, or as standing alone 
in my estimate of the dreaded dangers that 
environ us, I will condense and quote the fol- 
lowing from Abraham Lincoln's message to 
Congress in the year 1861. (See Barratt's 
Life of Lincoln, pages 309 and 310.) This 
important warning is omitted in the later his- 
tories of Mr. Lincoln: 

*' Monarchy is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge 
from the power of the people. In my present position I 
would scarcely be justified were I to omit exercising a warn- 
ing voice against returning despotism. There is one point 
to which 1 ask attention; it is the effort to place capital on 
an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure 
of the Government. I bid the laboring people beware of 
surretidering a power which they already possess, and which, 
surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of ad- 



8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

vancement to such as they, and fix new disabilities and 
burdens upon them until all of liberty shall be lost." 

There are several important reasons why the 
above quoted statement of Abraham Lincoln 
should be carefully analyzed and thoroughly 
understood by the American people. 

First. Because the author, although simple 
and plain in manner, was nevertheless one of 
the ablest men knov/n to history. 

Second. He was the very soul of honor, one 
of the few noted men of earth so high sou led 
and true that place and povver could not cor- 
rupt him. 

Third, He was not an alarmist. But on 
the contrary possessed a cool, calculating cour- 
age, therefore not likely to magnify danger. 

Fourth. His position first as a prominent 
lawyer, secondly as a member of Congress and 
lastly, as President of the United States, gave 
him an opportunity to learn that which is stu- 
diously kept from the common people, viz : The 
feelings and designs of the capitalists with ref- 
erence to this Government. 
f. In the absence of any other consideration 
the above facts, relating to Mr. Lincoln's po- 
sition in life, his character and stamp of mind, 
render his opinion valuable on any subject with 
which he professed familiarity. 



AS A NATION. 9 

But, when we consider that the statement 
above quoted has direct reference to the Amer- 
ican republic, averring that monarchy is being 
talked of as a refuge from the power of this 
people, manifesting alarm lest capital be placed 
above labor in the structure of the govern- 
ment, and the door of advancement closed 
against her toiling sons, then, sirs, his words 
gather importance and come to the American 
people freighted with deep meaning. This 
much I have said of Mr. Lincoln's v/arning in 
the hope that thereby I might Impress you with 
the vital importance of this subject. I will 
now discuss the question from a standpoint in 
which Mr. Lincoln will cut no figure. For really 
the one important thing for you to know is not 
whether that awful statement was made by 
Abraham Lincoln or somebody else, but is it 
true? Does our experience as a nation, since 
that time, justify the statement then made? If 
so, then your thoughts and anxiety should cen- 
ter, not upon Mr. Lincoln's sagacity, statesman- 
ship or character, but on the perilous condition 
of your country. Now, fellow citizens, I believe 
that I can prove so clearly by subsequent his- 
tory, not only that there has been an attempt to 
place capital above labor in the structure of 
this government, but that the attempt has been 



lO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

successful, that you will find it impossible to 
doubt the truth of Mr. Lincoln's accusations or 
the timely justice of his solemn warning. To 
do this it is necessary to carry you back to the 
time when the war cloud hung above the 
Nation's head, Vv^hen our forts were besieged, 
when liberty hung in the balance, when the 
tread of armies shook the solid earth and deep 
sorrow darkened the patriot's home. In that 
awful hour the Government found itself with- 
out money to support its armies in the field 
and defend its life. Neither the American nor 
foreign capitalists would loan it upon reason- 
able terms. The specie basis system, true to 
its history, had proved a failure in the hour of 
need. The banks would loan their notes to 
the Government at twenty per cent, premium 
to pay the army. (Who wouldn't exchange 
eighty dollars in notes, which they never ex- 
pected to pay, for one hundred dollars in 
bonds, payable in gold, bearing a high rate of 
interest, and backed by the United States Gov- 
ernment?) A very ordinary business man 
could work himself up to that degree of patri- 
otic fervor. But the banks had no power to 
make their notes good in the hands of the 
soldier, and the Government was obliged to 
refuse their insulting offer. The European 



AS A NATION. II 

capitalists would not loan us money at that 
time, for they hoped, and expected, to see the 
star of the great republic set in blood. The 
Government had no other alternative — it must 
issue money. A bill was drawn for that pur- 
pose, and passed the lower house. 

Had that bill become a law as it passed the 
House, the money issued under its provisions 
would have been a full legal tender; that is to 
say, every citizen of the United States would 
have been obliged to receive it in payment of 
debts. Now, truth always darts into the mind 
first — a lie is an after-thought, and the moment 
the proposition to issue that kind of money is 
stated, truth, under the dictation of common 
sense, takes possession of the mind, and says 
that it is a right principle. If the Government 
is to exercise the high prerogative of issuing 
money, let it be just — let there be no favoritism ; 
let high and low, rich and poor, fare alike; let 
there be no making one kind of money for the 
bondholder and another kind for the plow- 
holder. No man of common intelligence could 
see this subject in any other light. That bill 
passed the House according to the plain dic- 
tates of honest thought. But it met an array 
of bankers in the Senate who would not permit 
it to become a law in that form. They got the 



12 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

bill amended. They Inserted the words : ** Ex- 
cept duties on imports and the interest on the 
public debt." Now, what motive did they have 
for inserting those words in that bill? 

Why, they had a very strong motive. The 
men who had those words inserted were own- 
ers of gold, and, had the greenback been made 
a legal tender for duties on imports, those en- 
gaged in the importation of goods from foreign 
countries could have paid their duties with 
greenbacks, and the gold gamblers would have 
had no sale for their gold — nobody would have 
been obliged to have it. Then, too, those same 
gold gamblers were arranging to invest in gov- 
ernment bonds ; but had the greenback been 
made a legal tender for interest on the public 
debt, the owners of government bonds would 
have been obliged to receive their interest in 
greenbacks the same as the soldier received 
his pay. But, after the exception clause was 
inserted in the bill, the bondholder could get 
gold for interest on his bond, and sell it again 
to importers to pay duties on imports. So, you 
see, the words, "except duties on imports and 
the interest on the public debt," meant every- 
thing to the gold gamblers. It gave them a 
business. They then opened their gold room, 
reaped a harvest, and rioted in luxury; while 



AS A NATION. 1 3 

the soldier fought the battles of his country, 
and received his pay in greenbacks. 

I will here quote some remarks made by 
Thaddeus Stevens, in Congress, when the ex- 
ception clause was being fastened to the green- 
back. He spoke as follows: 

**I have melanclioly forebodings that we are about to 
consummate a cunningly devised scheme, which will carry 
great injury and a great loss to all classes of the people, 
throughout this Union, except one. It makes two classes 
of money — one for the banks and the other for the people." 

You will observe that the law inserting the 
exception clause in the greenback, placed capi- 
tal above labor in the structure of the Govern- 
ment; it made two kinds of money, one for the 
banks and another for the people. The banks 
and capitalists could, under this lav*r, demand 
gold for the interest on their money invested in 
bonds, but the farmer could not demand gold 
for furnishing supplies for the army, nor could 
the soldier demand gold for facing leaden hail 
on the field of batde. 

William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, once 
Secretary of the Treasury, and a Republican 
of the Lincoln stripe, in his report, when speak- 
ing with reference to the motive for placing the 
exception clause on the greenback, said : 
' "It is quite apparent that the solution of the problem 



14 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

may be found in the unpatriotic and criminal efforts of 
speculators, and probably of secret enemies, to raise the 'price 
of coin, regardless of the injury reflected upon the country." 

f The man is dull of comprehension who can 
not see that the price of any commodity could 
have been raised by the same method. 

HOW THERE CAME TO BE A PREMIUM ON GOLD. 

To illustrate : We will say that this excep- 
tion clause had made the duties on imports 
payable in black cats instead of coin. Now, 
that would have created a market for black cats 
at once. Men importing goods from foreign 
countries must have them to pay duties on im- 
ports, and every man who has a black cat will 
hold it for a high price, and get it ; for Congress 
has made a law that black cats, and black cats 
only, shall be received for duties on Imports. 
Now, the owners of white cats discover the 
trick, and induce Congress to repeal the law 
favoring the owners of black cats, and to pass 
a law making white cats receivable for duties. 
Black cats immediately become worthless — no 
more use for them. But there is a rush for 
■ white cats. Congress has made a law that 
only white cats shall be receivable for duties on 
imports. The owners of white cats are now in 
luck. Knowing that nothing but white cats 



AS A NATION. 1 5 

will pay duties, and that importers must have 
them for that purpose, they get together, cor- 
ner them, and run the price up to $2.85, just as 
gold gamblers did the price of gold. 

Fellow-citizens, was not that exception clause 
on the greenback a fine thing for gold specu- 
lators? It compelled importers to buy their 
gold to pay duties, and when the importer paid 
the duties on his goods, it lodged the gold in 
the Treasury. The Government then paid it 
to the bondholder, for interest on his bonds, 
and he again sold it to the importer, and so it 
went round and round, from speculator to im- 
porter, from importer to government, and from 
government back to speculator again. 

Hence, you see, the reason appears very 
plain why the banker and the bondholder 
wanted the exception clause on the back of the 
greenback: it sent their gold whirling round 
and round, leaving them a profit at every revo- 
lution. 

Well, you say, what of it? What if they 
did make a profit on their gold, did that harm 
us? Well, sirs, the what of it lies in the fact 
that the gold gambler made his profit out of 
the hard earnings of the people, which he 
could not have done if the greenback had 
been made a full legal tender, as it ought to 
have been. 



t6 whither are we drifting 

Here let us consider briefly the effect of the 
exception clause upon individuals. It will be 
remembered that during the war our sugar 
and cotton crop was cut off in the South, and 
we were obliged to import them from foreign 
countries, as we did, in whole or in part, more 
than 800 different articles. The duties on 
sugar at one time were as high as seventy-six 
per. cent. To illustrate the effect of the ex- 
ception clause upon the people, we will say, 
that in the year 1864, I was importing sugar 
from Cuba. That sugar, of course, was first 
landed at the American custom house; before 
I could take it out to sell to you, I was obliged 
to pay the seventy-six per cent, duties to the 
Government. Now, if the greenback had been 
a legal tender for the duties on imports, I 
could have paid the seventy-six per cent, in 
greenbacks and that would have added only 
that much to the cost of my sugar. But the 
money kings had crippled the greenback so 
that it would not pay duties on imports. Thus 
I was compelled to buy their gold for that pur- 
pose. Very well. They charged me at the 
rate of $2 85 in greenbacks for every one 
dollar in gold. Now, at that rate every sev- 
enty-six cents in gold cost me $2.13 in green- 
backs, thus making my sugar cost me $1.37 



AS A NATION. 1 7 

more than it would have cost had I been 
allowed to pay my duties in greenbacks. This 
$1 37 extra I must charge up to you when you 
purchase your sugar of me ; in other words, the 
exception clause on the greenback added at 
that time $1.37 to the cost of every dollar's 
worth of sugar you purchased. In the same 
manner you were compelled to pay enormous 
prices for your tea, coffee and several hun- 
dred different articles which you were pur- 
chasing at that time. Thus in the year 1864, 
the American people paid, in consequence of 
the exception clause on the greenback, the 
enormous sum of $388,966,216, or about $87 
to each family then paying duties. Allowing 
three hundred work days in a year, with wages 
at one dollar per day, the head of each family 
worked eighty seven days, or more than one- 
fourth of his time, during the year 1 864. for the 
gold gamblers of Wail street. Now, the peo- 
ple did not understand this The tax-gatherer 
did not come around and collect the money 
and pay it to the gold speculator, but the spec- 
ulator got it, just the same, and the people 
paid it, just the same. They paid it in a higher 
price for their goods, while the gold gambler 
received it In premiums on his gold. By this 
you will observe that all you lost by the failure 
2— D. 



1 8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of the greenback to pay duties the gold gam- 
bler gained. Think a moment. The soldier 
facing death on the battlefield for $16 per 
month, sending that money to his innocent and 
sorrow stricken family, while the gold gambler 
pockets indirectly a large share of his blood- 
earned treasure. Who wonders that Thaddeus 
Stevens had melancholy forebodings, when he 
saw a cunningly devised scheme being con- 
summated, which he knew would increase the 
misery of his already sorrowing countrymen ! 

A word more with reference to the motives 
that led the monied men to bully Congress into 
passing the greenback bill in a crippled condi- 
tion. The capitalists saw that the exception 
clause in the greenback would not only enable 
them to sell their gold, but that it would depre- 
ciate the greenback, and through the deprecia- 
tion of the greenback they could get hold of 
more bonds and in this way would be getting 
more gold to sell, inasmuch as the interest on 
the bonds was made payable in gold. Hence 
the depreciation of the greenback was a part of 
their devilish scheme. 

Fellow citizens, judging from anything you 
•ever heard spoken by Shylock's orators or pub- 
lished by his press, would you believe that the 
greenback was purposely depreciated? No, 



AS A NATION. 1 9 

they have given every reason for the deprecia- 
tion of the greenback except the right one. 
They have declared that it was because the 
Democrats cried them dov/n, and that it was 
because there were so many issued that it was 
feared the Government would not redeem them. 
Now, I say to you that the greenback was pur- 
posely depreciated, and here is the proof: John 
Sherman, the late Secretary of the Treasury, 
was once chairman of the Finance Committee 
in the United States Senate, and on the 12th 
day of December, 1867 (see Congressional 
Record, same date), he made a report, as 
chairman of that committee, and with reference 
to bonds and greenbacks, he said: 

"It became necessary to depreciate the notes (greenbacks) 
in order to create a market for the bonds." 

Of course, when the Government refused to 
receive greenbacks for debts due to the Gov- 
ernment, greenbacks must depreciate. When 
a man refuses to receive his own note in pay- 
ment of debts due to himself, his note must 
depreciate. The same must be true of the 
Government notes, and I am glad that we have 
it from John Sherman, the highest authority in 
the Republican party, that the greenback was 
purposely depreciated in order to create a mar- 
ket for the bonds. Now, this may be news to 



20 WHITHCR ARE WE DRIFTING 

you. The money power is keeping these im- 
portant facts from you as much as possible. It 
will help you to see more clearly into Shylock's 
scheme of robbery to know how the deprecia- 
tion of the greenback would create a market 
for bonds, and what the effect would be upon 
the people and bondholder. The exception 
clause lowered the value of greenbacks and 
raised the price of gold ; it changed their rela- 
tive value until the difference at one time was 
$1.85. Then the capitalist could purchase $285 
in greenbacks for ^100 in gold, and the Gov- 
ernment receive his greenbacks at par for bonds 
drawing six per cent, gold interest. This gave 
him $285 in bonds for ^100 in gold, and those 
bonds would be drav;ing just as much gold in- 
terest as though they cost their face value in 
gold. In this way he increased his interest in- 
come from six to seventeen and one-tenth per 
cent. 

Thus it will be seen that as a result of the 
depreciation of the greenback he draws seven- 
teen and one-tenth per cent, interest on his 
one hundred dollar gold investment ; whereas, 
if the greenback had been at par he could have 
drawn only six per cent. The depreciation of 
the greenback gave him an opportunity to al- 
most treble his interest-drawing capital, which 



AS A NATION. 21 

he did by investing his gold in greenbacks and 
the greenbacks in bonds drawing gold interest. 
I trust you now see how the depreciation of 
the greenback created a market for bonds, and 
how capital was placed above labor in the dark 
hour of our country's peril — the people's earn- 
ings taken from them by methods which they 
did not understand^ and hundreds of millions 
of the nation's wealth concentrated in the 
pockets of the gold gamblers of- Wall Street. 

Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, in a speech 
delivered in the Academy of Music, in Phila- 
delphia, on the 15th day of January, 1876, in 
speaking of the effects of the exception clause 
on the greenback, said : 

''That crime perpetrated by the Senate of the United 
States, or that blunder, worse than a crime, has cost the 
American people more than all the war would have cost, 
had the House-bill been adopted as originally passed. That 
-crime, or blunder, called into existence the gold room of 
!New York. It invited from all the money centers of the 
world their most voracious vampires to come here and fatten 
upon the life-blood of the American people. It converted 
commerce into a mere system of gambling, and made such 
creatures as Jay Gould and Jim Fisk possible in American 
bistory." 

In view of the above quoted and astounding 
statement of Judge Kelley, shall we not ask: 
Was not Mr. Lincoln's warning timely? In 



22 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

coming years, when the people shall realize the 
real situation of our country, that warning shall 
stir the hearts of generations of Americans yet 
unborn. 

I will here introduce another instance where 
capital was placed above labor in the structure 
of the government. It will be remembered 
that in the year 1869 Congress passed and 
General Grant signed a bill, known as the 
credit strengthening act. This bill made the 
five-twenty bonds payable in gold, although 
when they were issued by the Government it 
was understood that they were to be paid in 
currency (greenbacks). 

Judge Doolittle, of Wisconsin, then a Re- 
publican, speaking on the same subject in Con- 
gress, said: 

''When these bonds were issued, the very law which 
authorized them to be issued declared that the legal tender 
notes, which were authorized to be issued, should be lawful 
money, and a legal tender in payment of every public 
debt, except the interest. When it is so declared in the 
law, and when you take into account the fact that what the 
government received was depreciated paper money, and 
depreciated on purpose, as the Finance Committee inform 
us, that the more of it might be purchased with a dollar of 
gold, the holders of these bonds knew they took them sub- 
ject to that contingency." 

Here you have another witness, whose repu- 



AS A NATION. 23 

tation is untarnished, telling you that the com- 
mittee informed Congress that the greenback 
was purposely depreciated, that tnore of them 
might be bought with a dollar of gold; and, 
also, that the five-twenty bonds were payable 
in greenbacks. Why, if they were issued pay- 
able in gold in the first place, why did they 
pass the credit-strengthening act of 1869? 
The very fact that they passed that law is 
proof positive that, before that time, the bonds 
were pctyable in greenbacks, else the law mak- 
ing them payable in gold was meaningless. 
Hear Governor Morton, of Indiana, in a speech 
delivered in Congress, in 1868. He spoke as 
follows: 

''When it is asserted that the government is bound to 
pay the five-twenty bonds in coin, I say that it is not only 
without law, but it is in express violation of at least four 
statutes. We should do foul injustice to the government 
and to the people of the United States, after we have sold 
these bonds, on an average, for not more than sixty cents 
on the dollar, now to propose to make a new contract for 
the benefit of the bondholder." 

The Republican party had no abler man in 
Congress than Oliver P. Morton. He said 
that to pay those bonds in coin would be to 
violate at least four statutes. He felt as the 
people will feel when they come to understand 



24 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the matter, viz.: That it was foul injustice to 
them to make a new contract for the benefit 
of the bondholder, and pay him a dollar when 
he had loaned only about half that amount. 
Blind partisans may applaud the act, but the 
honest historian will record it as a foul deed. 

Read the following statement, made by sturdy 
old Ben Wade, of Ohio, in a letter written at 
Washington, December 13, 1867. Suffice it 
has passed into history, and is worthy of its 
illustrious author. He wrote as follows : 

"I am for the laboring portion of our people; the rich 
can take care of themselves. While I must scrupulously 
live up to all the contracts of the government, and fight 
the bondholder as resolutely when he undertakes to get 
more than the pound of flesh. We never agreed to pay 
the five-twenties in gold ; no man can find it in the bond, 
and I never will consent to have one payment for the bond- 
holder and another for the people. It would sink any 
party, and it ought to." 

The so-called credit-strengthening act placed 
capital above labor in the structure of the 
Government. 

A certain class of men in this country, known 
as bankers and bondholders, have had much to 
say about gold, or the honest dollar, as they 
call it. Their soulless orators have shouted it 
from every platform ; their base politicians have 
screamed it from the street corners; money 



AS A NATION. 25 

sharks have yelled it from the broker*s office, 
while the press ridiculed and persecuted every 
good citizen who was too honest or too sensi- 
ble to join in the infamous cry. But did it 
never occur to you that those honest dollar 
men, never once, through all that fierce ordeal 
of civil war, hinted gold to but one class of 
American citizens? 

The seamstress was plying her needle, day 
in and day out, week in and week out, making 
clothing for the soldiers ; thus, whenever her 
toilsome task was ended, whether from the 
demand having been supplied, or from ex- 
hausted nerves, which could endure no longer, 
did those honest dollar men ask that she have 
gold for her pay ? No ; they placed in her 
weary hand a greenback, purposely depre- 
ciated by the gold gambler, until it was not 
worth more than fifty cents to the dollar. She 
was obliged to receive it or go without her pay. 
She was innocent and honest. She received it 
as a patriotic duty, not knowing why it was de- 
preciated. Depreciated greenbacks were good 
enough for the poor seamstress. 

The hospital nurse sat by the soldier's sick-, 
bed, watched through the long day, and on, 
through the lonely night ; with tired hands she 
smoothed his fevered brow ; with aching heart 



26 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

she penned his last message to his friends at 
home, closed his eyes in death, and in a low, 
sweet voice, thanked Almighty God that 
strength had been given her to cheer the last 
hours of a dying patriot. When that noble 
woman received, not her pay (for money can- 
not pay for such self-sacrificing devotion to the 
cause of humanity), but the trifling sum that 
would enable her to continue her efforts to re- 
lieve suffering, she received it in greenbacks, 
worth fifty cents on the dollar. She was satis- 
fied. She asked for no more, and the honest 
dollar men never asked that she have gold. 
Greenbacks were good enough for the hospital 
nurse. 

The old man on the western slope of life, in 
the fading rays of his last sunset — his sons 
were in the army — he had toiled through sultry 
June and bleak November; with aching back 
and limb he had gathered ten bushels of corn ; 
he turned it over to the Government to feed 
the soldiers, and received his pay in depreciated 
greenbacks. The old man was honest and 
patriotic; he received them without a murmur; 
he asked for no more — and Shylock's press and 
demagogues never asked that he have gold for 
his pay. Greenbacks were good enough for 
the old man, who furnished supplies to the army. 



AS A NATION. 2^ 

The soldier received his sister's affectionate 
farewell, bade his brother a sad good bye- 
clasped a father's trembling hand — pressed a 
sweet babe to his heaving bosom— unloosed a 
wife's arms from about his neck, received the 
last kiss, dewy with the inspiration of a mother's 
love, and turned to see grief o'erspreading her 
dear old face, as her son's last foot-falls died on 
the distant air, as he walked forth to meet the 
foe. Now he shivers beneath a stormy south- 
ern sky, in the black midnight. Now, he 
marches in a heat almost tropical. Now, shot 
and shell scream through the air, and horses 
fly wild and riderless across the field. All day 
the battle rages, and the sun goes down on less 
than half the number it rose upon in the morn- 
ing. The battalion rallies and retreats, retreats 
and rallies, and struggles on, while sheets of 
flame leap against the midnight sky ; and finally, 
at the close of battle's mighty roar, are heard 
shouts of victory from the jaded hosts of the 
Union army. The surviving veteran flings him- 
self upon the ground, to sleep among his dead 
and dying comrades, breathing air laden and 
stagnant with the stench of human gore, and 
pierced with groans of anguish from ten thou- 
sand bleeding victims. With the morning sun 
he rises, to plunge again into fierce conflict; a 



28 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

missile of death pierces his breast — he falls, 
may be to be trampled beneath the hoof of 
charging cavalry, or crushed by the wheels of 
flying artillery. His life blood ebbs away, his 
bones bleach in the enemy's soil, and a south- 
ern sun burns upon his grave. But, while life 
was his he marched, and fought, and suffered, 
and received his scanty pay in purposely depre- 
ciated greenbacks. With this he was satisfied. 
Who did demand gold? Why, that gang of 
money pirates demanded it, and got it. They 
besieged Congress, and clamored for gold ; 
and that, too, when the treasury was stagger- 
ing beneath its burden, like a drunken man, 
when death and mourning was at every hearth- 
stone. They cruelly depreciated the green- 
,back, so that the soldier received only fifty 
cents when he had earned a dollar, while Shy- 
lock, who shared neither danger nor hardship, 
received a dollar for every fifty cents he had 
invested in bonds. Now, when the Shylocks 
had depreciated the greenback so as to enrich 
themselves by cheating the soldier and the 
laborer out of a share of their earnings, and 
had drawn gold interest on bonds purchased 
with depreciated greenbacks, and had also 
managed to get his bonds exempted from tax- 
ation, thus compelling the laboring people to 



AS A NATION. 29 

pay the debt after fighting the battles — after 
all this those shameless villains came forward 
and demanded gold for bonds, which, by the 
terms of the contract under which they were 
issued were payable in greenbacks ; and in that 
demand, they were backed by almost the entire 
leading press of the country, and, of course, 
by the whole office-holding fraternity; and 
men who opposed the devilish scheme were 
denounced as dishonest repudiators. 

Shylock and his servants, the press, never 
demanded gold for the soldier while he lived, 
nor for his v/ife and fatherless children, when 
the hero was dead. Greenbacks were good 
enough for them. 

While clamoring for an honest dollar for his 
own vast pockets, and never demanding gold for 
the soldiers, Shylock made the country's ne- 
cessity his opportunity. He made money out 
of the people's woes. He made the nation's 
season of disaster his harvest time, and grew 
richer and richer, while the country plunged 
deeper and deeper into debt ; and, finally, he 
has seized the press, corrupted the avenues of 
intelligence, and threatens us with a centralized 
government, in which he can continue his sys- 
tem of robbery, and defy all the power of the 
people to prevent it. 



30 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

I now propose to reveal to you facts with 
regard to your relation to the money power, 
that ought to make your blood curdle in your 
veins. You hear of despotism while you think 
you are enjoying liberty. If you were gov- 
erned by a monarch, whose word was law, and 
he should say to every farmer: **Sir, the price 
of the products of your farm must be lowered 
two-thirds;'* and to every merchant, "Sir, you 
must mark the price of your goods down;" 
and to every artisan at his bench, to every 
delver in the mines, to every laborer on the 
land, and to every sailor on the sea. "Sirs, 
your wages must be cut down," would you not 
think it awful — would you not think it cruelty 
and despotism unbearable? 

I now propose to place it beyond your power 
to doubt that the banks and money loaning 
capitalists exercise just that power over you. 
They can and do determine when you shall 
prosper and when you shall suffer privation, 
when you shall rejoice, and when you shall 
mourn. Do you know, fellow-citizens, that 
under our present monetary system the banks 
can and do control the prices of commodities, 
and therefore your financial destiny? Do you 
know that the money power can raise the value 
of their property (which is money) by lower- 



AS A NATION. 3 1 

ing the price of your farms, your labor and Its 
products ? You appear a litde startled, and I do 
not wonder at it, for if my statement be true, it 
is an awful truth, one at which you may even 
shudder. For human nature is much the same 
the world over: if one man can raise the price 
of his own property by lowering that of some- 
body else he will be very likely to do so. I 
venture to say that there is scarcely one among 
you who has a neighbor in whom you Have 
such unbounded confidence that you would be 
willing to say to him: Here, sir, I am going to 
give you full power to raise and lower the price 
of my labor and my property and pocket the 
difference. You would fear that he would take 
advantage of his opportunity, and lower the 
price and buy while it is low; raise the price 
and sell when it is high. Take it home to your- 
self. If you had the power to raise the price 
of your own property by lowering that of your 
neighbor, would you not be tempted to do so, 
provided your neighbor did not understand your 
methods, and consequently could not know 
what you were doing? Now, my friends, I can 
demonstrate so clearly, that you will find it im- 
possible to doubt, that you stand in the same 
relation to the money loaning capitalist as that 
your neighbor would to you under such circum- 



32 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Stances as I have described. Under our pres- 
ent financial system the laboring and producing 
classes are as helpless in the hands of the 
money power as a child In the arms of its nurse. 
The money power controls the volume of money 
in circulation^ and the volume of money in cir- 
culation controls prices and the prosperity of 
the people. In support of this statement I will 
produce the bankers' own authority. In the 
Bankers' Magazine for March, 1877, page 711, 
I find the following: 

*' Suppose for argument sake, that the joint production 
of gold and silver, which is now about forty millions an- 
nually, were to become four hundred millions, we would 
find a rapid rise in money prices, in other words a diminu- 
tion in the real value or purchasing power of money." 

Here the bankers themselves admit that 
should the volume of money be enlarged, the 
value of other property would raise. In other 
words the real value of money would decrease. 
In the Bankers' Magazine for July, 1873, I find 
the following statement by Senator Morrill, of 
Vermont : 

''In ordinary times few comprehend the archimedean 
leverage of a few millions added to or subtracted from the 
currency of a nation actively engaged in the affairs of the 
world." 

What does Senator Morrill (who by the way 



AS A NATION. 33 

is a prominent Republican), mean by the arch- 
imedean leverage of a few millions added to or 
subtracted from the currency of a nation ? 
He simply means that a few millions added to 
or subtracted from the volume of money in 
circulation has great power to raise and lower 
prices and thus disturb the business of a country. 
It will be remembered that Secretary Richard- 
son attempted to reissue forty-four millions of 
greenbacks already retired. With reference 
to that transaction I find the following in the 
Bankers' Magazine for Februrary, 1873, page 

653: 

''Every discreet and honest man must be glad to see the 
Finance Committee sharply say that such vast power over 
the values of the country should not rest on mere implica- 
tion or strained construction of a law of long standing. 

*'The enormous power claimed and exercised by the 
Treasury Department was not and should not be given to 
any official, either explicitly or by implication. No man 
has ever been intrusted with such absolute control over the 
fortunes and happiness of his fellow citizens in this country, 
and none ever ought to be. The Committee truly observe 
that the full exercise of sucli a power would affect the nom- 
inal value of all property in the United States to the extent 
of at least ten per centum, and the real value or burden as 
between debtor and creditor of at least ten per cent, on all 
contracts to be performed in future. The pretentions to 
such a power is monstrous and has been none too soon re- 
buked and discarded." 



3— D. 



34 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Forty-four millions was the amount in con- 
troversy. 

You will observe from the above quotation 
that the Bankers' own organ admits all I claim, 
viz.: That the volume of money in circulation 
controls the values of the country, and conse- 
quently the prosperity and happiness of the 
people. You will observe also, that the bank- 
ers rail at Secretary Richardson, and think it 
monstrous and dangerous, that he should have 
the power to add forty- four millions to the 
volume of currency, which would raise the 
price of the people's property and lower the 
value of money. But the Bankers' Magazine 
has never been known to find fault with the 
retiring of greenbacks, which lessens the vol- 
ume of money, and thereby increases its pur- 
chasing power, which is in the interest of bank- 
ers and against the people. 

To know that enlarging the volume of money 
will raise the price of other property, it is only 
necessary to understand the law of supply and 
demand; for the value, or purchasing power 
of money, is controlled by the same law as that 
of wheat. Should one half of the wheat in 
the country be destroyed, it would double the 
price of what remained. In other words, it 
w^ould require twice as much of something else 



AS A NATION. 35 

to get a bushel of wheat. Clearly, then, should 
one-half the money in the country be destroyed, 
it would double the price, or purchasing power 
of what remained. In other words, it would 
require twice as much of other property to get 
a dollar of money ; or, which is the same thing, 
it would double the price, or purchasing power 
of money, or lower the price of other prop- 
erty one-half. 

John Stuart Mill, a very prominent writer on 
political economy, says : 

'*If the whole money in circulation was doubled, prices 
would double." 

Ricardo, another eminent writer on the same 
subject, says : 

"That commodities would rise in price, in proportion to 
the increase or diminution of money, I assume to be a fact 
that is incontrovertible." 

I trust you now feel that I have proven (if 
human testimony and experience can prove any- 
thing) that the volume of money in circulation 
controls your happiness, prosperity and finan- 
cial destiny. How dare you then leave that 
volume of money to be controlled by bankers, 
who are no better than you are, and who are 
just as likely to raise the price of their prop- 
erty, by lowering the price of yours, as you 



36 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

would be to raise the price of your property, 
by lowering the price of theirs, had you the 
power to do so. I will now demonstrate the all 
important, and, to you, astounding fact, that all 
financial disasters and hard times, as they are 
called, are produced by a contraction of the 
currency; by making the volume of money in 
circulation smaller. In support of this state- 
ment F. A. Walker, Professor of History and 
Political Economy in Yale College, shall be the 
first witness. With reference to a contraction 
of the currency and hard times, he says : 

"When the process of contraction commences, the first 
class on whom it falls is the merchants of the large cities — 
they find it difficult to get money to pay their notes. The 
next class is the manufacturers — the sale for their goods at 
once falls off. The laborers and mechanics next feel the 
pressure — they are thrown out of employment ; and lastly 
the farmer finds a dull sale for his produce. And all, 
unsuspicious of the real cause, have a vague idea that their 
difficulties are owing to the "hard times." Periodical 
revulsions in trade of a frightful character have occurred 
in this country at short intervals ever since the introduc- 
tion of the mixed currency system. Their terrible effects 
(1818, 1837, 1857 in particular) have been seen by all, 
and we have become so familiar with them that we look 
upon them as the natural phenomena of business ; but it is 
not so." 

Here the Professor admits that the disasters 
of i8i8, 1837 ^^^ 1S57 were produced by a 



AS A NATION. 37 

contraction of the currency, and that the people 
did not know the real cause of their suffering, 
but had a vague idea that it was owing to hard 
times. He also tells us that we have had those 
disasters so often that the people have come to 
look upon them as the natural phenomena of 
business. But Professor Walker says it is not 
so. In this he is correct. In the disaster of 
1873, the Shylocks were early on hand with a 
reason which ..threw most of the blame upon 
the people. They said that the disaster was 
brought about by over-production of commod- 
ities, and extravagance on the part of the pecT- 
ple. And at the same time they pointed out a 
remedy, which was that the people should 
work harder and be more economical. 

Let us Examine this theory. If over-produc- 
tion was the cause of the hard times, Shylock's 
remedy could only aggravate the disease; be- 
cause to have been more economical would 
have been to consume less of what had already 
been produced, and that would leave the over- 
production greater; while to have worked 
harder would have been to add to a production 
already claimed to be too great, and thus 
would have increased the difficulty which need- 
ed to be remedied. 

It will be seen, at a glance, that if over-pro- 



38 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

duction had caused the disaster, a greater dili- 
gence on the part of the people would have 
added to their misery — too much had been pro- 
duced already. Had over-production been the 
cause of the trouble, It would have been folly 
to have asked God to bless you with a more 
abundant harvest, for, according to Shylock's 
theory, the harvest had been too abundant al- 
ready. I will now demonstrate that the disas- 
ter of 1873 was also produced by a contraction 
of the currency. 

In 1874, in his speech In Congress, reported 
page 139 of appendix to Congressional Recordy 
for that year, John A. Logan, of Illinois, said r 

"The circulating medium has been contracted $1,018,- 
167,784." 

And, in support of this statement, he refers 
Senators to a book, v/ritten by the Secretary 
himself, pages 94 and 96. 

For the purpose of making the volume of 
money smaller, to lower prices, so that their 
money might purchase more of the people's 
property, the money kings Influenced Congress 
to say. In effect, to men having a thousand 
dollars In greenbacks, interest-bearing or non- 
Interest bearing, if you will give me (the Gov- 
ernment), your thousand dollars, I (the Govern- 



AS A NATION. 39 

ment), will burn and destroy the thousand 
dollars ; but I will give you Instead a thousand 
dollar bond drawing six per cent. Interest. 
Thus it will be seen that the thousand dollars 
is taken out of circulation, and the currency 
contracted that much, while the people have 
a thousand dollar bond to pay interest on, in 
the hand of the Shylock, instead of the money 
to do business with. 

This is the way the currency was contracted 
more than one billion dollars ; this was the 
contraction policy Inaugurated by the resolu- 
tion of Congress, In December, 1866, and voted 
for by the leadership of both old parties. The 
people's money and prosperity were destroyed 
at the same time, and by the same act. 

(For money burned and destroyed, see Sec 
retary Bristow's Treasury Report, under head 
of destruction account.) 

Yes, fellow citizens, through the Influence of 
the money power the volume of money was 
made smaller, the price of your farms and the 
products of your labor lowered, and more than 
one-half of the value of your property taken 
from you and given to the fund- holding class. 
This I can prove so positively and clearly that 
you will find yourselves powerless to resist me. 
I will first introduce John Sherman, late Secre- 



40 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tary of the United States Treasury. He once 
defended the rights of the people (he has got- 
ten bravely over it, however), he is now among 
the "most adroit of your enemies. When the 
proposition to shrink the volume of money was 
before the Senate, he spoke as follows : 

"The appreciation of tlie currency is a far more distress- 
ing operation than Senators suppose. Our own and other 
nations have gone through that process before. ^ * It 
is not possible to take this voyage" (meaning the contrac- 
tion of the currency to appreciate its value) ' ' without the 
sorest distress. To every person except a capitalist, out of 
debt, or a salaried officer or annuitant, it is a period of loss, 
danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of en- 
terprise, bankruptcy and disaster. ^ ^ * It means the 
ruin of all dealears whose debts are twice their business 
capital, though one-third less than their actual property. 
It means the fall of all agricultural productions, without 
any great reduction of taxes. When that day comes, ev- 
ery man, as the sailor says, will be close-reefed, aU enter- 
prise will be suspended, every bank will have contracted 
its currency to the lowest limit; and the debter, compelled 
to meet, in coin, a debt contracted in currency, will find 
the coin hoarded in the Treasury, no representative of coin 
in circulation, his property shrunk not only to the extent of 
the appreciation of the currency, but still more, by the artifi- 
cial scarcity made by the hoarders of gold. To attempt this 
task by a surprise upon our people, by arresting them in the 
midst of their lawful business, and applying a new standard 
of value to their property," [did you know that the volume of 
money could be shrunken, you arrested in the midst of your 
lawful business and a new standard of value applied to 



AS A NATION. 4! 



« 



your property? — Ed.] "without any reduction of their 
debts or giving them an opportunity to compound with their 
creditors, or to distribute the losses, would be an act of 
folly without an example in evil, in modern times." 

Please take notice that Mr. Sherman does 
not speak of extravagance or over production 
as having any relation to a national financial 
disaster. He would have been ashamed to 
mention such a thing; for everybody in the 
Senate knew better. That lie was left for 
the stump speakers and a depraved press to 
tell the people in excited political campaigns. 
The leaders knew what that contraction policy 
meant. It meant the fall of all agricultural 
productions; it meant the fall of wages; it 
meant bankruptcy and disaster; it meant that 
men should pay in coin, or its equivalent, a 
debt contracted to be paid in currency, thereby 
doubling the value of the money loaner's income 
and doubling the people's burdens. 

You have before you Sherman's prophecy, 
with regard to the effects that contraction must 
have upon the country. Was not that prophecy 
fulfilled to the very letter? Did not the people's 
property shrink in price? Was not enterprise 
suspended? Was there not bankruptcy and dis- 
aster? Did not sore distress come upon every 
person except the capitalist and salaried offi- 



42 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

cers? Did not strong men seek refuge In sui- 
cide and noble women weep bitter tears, know- 
ing not the cause of their suffering? Did not 
crime and destitution multiply through all the 
land? Did not barefoot children, with famine in 
their eyes, beg for bread amid the snow piles 
of Northern winters? 

Let us hear from another distinguished Re- 
publican on this subject. Senator Ferry, of 
Michigan, in a speech delivered in May, 1878, 
said : 

"I confess, Mr. President, that as an early advocate of 
the receivability of United States notes for duties and 
against contraction and forced resumption, as the safest and 
speediest method of arriving at resumption, rather than by 
naming a day when specie payments should be enforced, I 
reluctantly joined in the compromise measure of 1875 '^ 
(meaning the resumption act) "which I feared would en- 
tail, upon the business and toiling community, incalculable 
woe. The universal distress and uuparalleled failures 
which have followed these past years of trial, must sadly 
record the severity of the process which has brought the 
country so near resumption, and so close to financial ruin." 

Mr. Ferry says not one word about extrava- 
gance or over production ; but he does say he 
opposed contraction, fearing it ** would entail 
upon the business and toiling community incal- 
culable woe." And this he follows with the 
statement that *'the universal distress and un- 



AS A NATION. 43 

paralleled failures*' which did follow that policy, 
sadly records the severity of the process which 
brought this country " so close to financial ruin." 

In other words, he said it was the contraction 
of the currency that so nearly ruined this coun- 
try. He had feared it would entail upon the 
toiling community incalculable woe. Did it 
not do so? Millions of people were reduced 
from good circumstances to penury, or covered 
with debt, beneath which burden their backs 
must bend, until it is unloaded at the grave, 
where an innocent posterity must take it up 
and bear it on. 

Thus Senator Ferry's fears have been real- 
ized, and incalculable woe has been entailed 
upon coming generations. If you still doubt, I 
will call attention to the fact that on the fif- 
teenth of August, 1876, a joint resolution be- 
came a law creating what was called a Mone- 
tary Commission, consisting of three United 
States Senators, three members of the House 
and three Secretaries, whose duty it was to 
inquire into the change which had taken place 
in the relative value of gold and silver; the 
causes thereof, whether permanent or other-; 
wise; the effects upon trade, commerce, and 
the productive interests of the country. That 
committee was composed of the following gen- 



44 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tlemen: Messrs. John P. Jones, Lewis V. 
Bogy and George S. Boutwell, of the Senate ; 
Randall L. Gibson, George Willard and Richard 
P. Bland, of the House of Representatives. 
Wm. S. Groesbeck, of Ohio; Professor Francis 
Bowen, of Massachusetts ; George M. Weston, 
of Maine, were appointed Secretaries. The 
committee had other duties assigned It, such as 
an inquiry into the best means of facilitating 
specie payments, etc. But those duties need 
not be mentioned here. 

The question, '* What brought the disaster 
of 1873, and years of dreadful suffering to 
this people?" was thoroughly examined and 
squarely decided by it. The committee held 
meetings in New York and Washington, had 
an extensive correspondence, and took much 
testimony bearing upon the subject, and on the 
second day of March, 1877, rendered a report 
in which precisely these words appear: 

" The true and only cause of the stagnation in industry 
and commerce now everywhere felt, is the fact everywhere 
existing of falling prices, caused by a shrinkage in the vol- 
ume of money." 

Here is no intimation that extravagance or 
Over-production had anything whatever to do 
with causing the disaster of 1873. But, with 
all the light which an exhaustive examination 



AS A NATION. 45 

could throw upon the subject, the committee 
declare emphatically that the **true and only 
cause" of that disaster was the ** shrinkage in 
the volume of money." 

It is useless to multiply testimony to prove 
that the disaster of 1873 was caused by a con- 
traction of the currency. I will add one more, 
however, from the London Bankers' Magazine, 
October, 1873, page 995. It speaks as fol- 
lows : 

'* While this deficiency of gold in America is a circum- 
stance accompanied by many adverse effects, the contracted 
state of legal tenders gives rise to results immeasurably 
more serious, as we have recently seen ^ :^ ^ 

the growing dearth of the currency was the main cause of 
the collapse." 

From the above quotation from the London 
Bankers' Magazine, you will see that the bank- 
ers of Europe understood that the contraction 
of the currency produced the disaster and suf- 
fering of 1873. 

The enormity of the contraction policy will 
be better understood by tracing the effects di- 
rectly to the people individually. To illustrate: 
A farmer purchased a quantity of land in 1864 
or 5, before the volume of money had been 
shrunken. He paid one thousand dollars down, 
and gave a note and mortgage for the other 



46 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

thousand, to be paid In 1878. Now, It Is ad- 
mitted by the highest Republican authority, 
that the "true and only cause of the fall of 
prices was due to a shrinkage in the volume 
of money." Now, if we can determine how 
much the price of farm produce fell, we can 
determine how much the farmer was affected 
by the contraction of the currency and the con- 
sequent increase in the value of money. I 
trust the Agricultural Department at Wash 
ington will be considered good authority- 
There all the figures are gathered and pub- 
lished under authority of law. And, in Agri- 
cultural Reports for 1878, page 290, I find the 
following : 

"The average price obtained by the farmer has fallen 
off two-thirds in fifteen years, corn being 97 ^'^^ per bushel 
in 1864 and 37 ^^^ in 1878. The last named crop, though 
greater by forty-six mililons of bushels, than its prede- 
cessor, fell short of it thirty million dollars in aggregate 
value. The average value of each acre's yield has fallen 
to the unprecedently low figure of $8.55 in 1878— in 1864 
it amounted to $30.64." 

Remember, these figures are taken from the 
Department of Agriculture at Washington, 
where they appear in Republican handwriting. 
We will say the farmer has paid one thousand 
and still owes one thousand, to be paid at the 



AS A NATION. 47 

expiration of ten years. Now, if he succeeds 
in paying the balance when due, how has he 
been affected by the contraction of the curren- 
cy and consequent fall of prices? Why, when 
the other thousand is paid, his land will sell for 
only half as many dollars as he paid for it. 
What has become of the first thousand-dollar 
payment? He worked hard for the money and 
paid it to the mortgagee, but it is not repre- 
sented in his land; he cannot sell the land and 
get it back ; if he sells he certainly cannot get 
more than the last thousand back, because the 
price of land has also fallen not less than one- 
half. Has not the first thousand dollar pay- 
ment been shrunken out of it? Is it not a 
dead loss to the farmer? We will now suppose 
the farmer not to have paid the last thousand 
dollars ; but since he made the first payment 
the price of his corn, pork, beef, wheat and all 
the products of his labor has been lowered two- 
thirds. He must now toil three times as many 
days to pay the other thousand dollars, because 
it will require three times as much of the pro- 
duce of his farm to get the thousand dollars ; 
hence, you see, the contraction policy has not 
only sunk that which he has paid, but it has, in 
effect, trebled his indebtedness and has made 
the debt three times as hard to pay. It has, in 



48 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTIMG 

effect, changed his contract from one to three 
thousand dollars. It will now require three 
times as much wheat, three times as much pork, 
three times as much corn ; consequently, three 
times as many acres must be cultivated to pay 
the thousand dollars. That which was con- 
tracted to be paid in cheap money must be 
paid in dear money. 

Farmers, can you not now see why you could 
not get out of debt? Your debts were being 
trebled by the money power. That shrinkage 
policy was cruel, beyond the power of language 
to describe, and the means used by the capital- 
ists to keep the people ignorant of what was 
being done were base and devilish. The peo- 
ple were deluded into the belief that everything 
was working well. They did not know that a 
policy was being pursued by the Government 
that must lower the price of everything except 
money. 

I aril creditably informed, that in Grant 
County, Wisconsin, one money loaner took to 
himself sixty eight farms in one year, as the 
result of the contraction policy. The farmers 
were flourishing, for the first time. Up to 1864 
money had been the one thing hard to get; 
then it was easy. They saw an opportunity to 
purchase land for their sons and for other pur- 



AS A NATION. 49 

poses. Nor did they consider that they were 
running a risk, and probably not one in five 
hundred of the farmers who were ruined during 
thh hard times, had ventured beyond the line 
of sound business prudence. But the value of 
money was increased and made hard to get; 
prices were sent down, and disaster followed, 
from which the next century will not see the 
country recover. Did the m.oney loaners lose 
anything by bringing that disaster upon the 
people ? No ; their bonds and mortgages 
called for just as many dollars as they did be- 
fore prices fell. Did the farm and its products 
call for as many dollars? Oh, no; only about 
one-third. Farmers and toilers, do you not 
see that the money power shrunk the price of 
your property, but did not shrink that of their 
own? 

But you ask, ** why did they shrink the price 
of your property," unless they gained by it? 

Now, you ask the question that strikes to the 
very root of this whole matter of contracting 
the currency. They did gain by it. All the 
people lost by the shrinkage of values, the 
money power gained, because it raised the rel- 
ative value of money and moneyed obligations. 
The Congressman favored the contraction pol- 
icy because it trebled the purchasing power of 
4^D. 



50 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

his salary, but the people should remember 
that it cost them three times as much labor to 
-pay him that salary. Thus, you see why every 
Government official, every salaried officer, 
every money loaner, the railroad corporations, 
the insurance companies, and indeed all who 
drew salaries or interest from the people, 
favored the contraction policy: it trebled the 
value of their income, at the same time trebling 
the people's burdens. The people should 
remember that although their tax bills call for 
less dollars than th*ey did in 1865 or 66y it costs 
them much more labor to pay them, while the 
money so paid is that much more valuable in 
the hands of those who receive it. 

' On the public debt, principal and interest, 
there has been paid more than two billion of 
dollars, or more than two dollars for every min- 
ute that has elapsed since Jesus Christ wa.lked 
this earth, eighteen hundred and eighty-three 
years ago. Yet the question you should ask 
yourselves is, can v/e pay that debt to-day with 
less of the products of our labor, than we could 
in 1866? If we can, our burdens are lighter; 
but if it will require more of the products of 
labor to pay the debt now than it would have 
required in 1866, our burdens are heavier. If 
we take the report of the Secretary of the 



AS A NATION. 51 

Treasury for the amount of national debt, 
and our Agricultural Reports for the prices of 
commodities, we find that that debt hangs 
almost one third heavier about the neck of thisy 
Nation to-day, than it did before one cent had 
been paid. The hirelings of the money power 
boast of having reduced the national debt, but 
do not tell you that they have reduced the 
debt-paying power of your labor in a much 
larger ratio. 

THE DANGER AND CRUELTY OF OUR UNTAXABLE 
BOND SYSTEM. 

The power of bonds to rob labor, and pro- 
duce the dangerous extremes of poverty and 
wealth, may be illustrated in the following 
manner: 

Jones is a producer, and represents the peo- 
ple ; Strait is a capitalist, and represents the 
bondholding class. To make the illustration 
simple and clear, I will speak as though Jones 
and Strait were the only persons in the Gov- 
ernment. Jones is the laboring people ; Strait 
is the capitalists. Twenty years ago Strait had 
one thousand dollars in greenbacks; it was a 
surplus thousand, and he invested it in a Gov- 
ernment bond, drawing six per cent, interest. 



52 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Jones also had one thousand dollars of the 
same kind of money, at the same time, but it 
was all he had, and he was obliged to invest 
his in land, from which he could dig a liveli- 
hood for himself and family. Each invested 
his money as he saw fit, or, rather, as circum- 
stances permitted. Now, Strait's bond is not 
taxable for any purpose whatever; but Jones* 
land is taxable. Here, you see, the non-tax- 
able bond system gives Strait this advantage 
over Jones : he can invest his money so as to 
escape taxation, while Jones' poverty forbids it 
— he must invest his money in something from 
which he can get a living for his family, by ad- 
ding his labor to it. 

To further illustrate the advantages which 
accrue to Strait, from our imported, untaxable 
bond system, I will say that, had all the wealth 
of the nation been taxed equally, for those 
twenty years, taxes would have averaged two 
per cent., or twenty dollars on a thousand, but 
Strait's bond not being taxable, Jones must pay 
the twenty dollars in Strait's stead. What 
Strait gets rid of paying, of course, Jones must 
pay. 

Now, Strait's bond not being taxable, he has 
saved twenty dollars, which he ought to have 



AS A NATION. 53 

paid in taxes. But it has fallen that much 
heavier on Jones, and he has paid twenty dol- 
lars which he ought to have been permitted to 
save. 

So far Jones has only paid Strait's taxes ; he 
must now pay his own, which will require an- 
other twenty dollars. The comparative differ- 
ence may then be stated, as follows : Jones has 
paid his own and Strait's taxes, which has taken 
forty dollars. Strait, having escaped taxation, 
can count himself twenty dollars ahead. He 
now has one thousand and twenty dollars. It 
has opened a gap of sixty dollars between them 
in one year on a thousand dollar investment. 

This Jones can see. He understands how 
he pays his State, county and township tax. 
The assessor comes around and assesses his 
property and he counts down the dollars to the 
tax collector. But the story is not half told. 
Jones is paying a tax which he knows nothing 
about, and Strait is making a draft upon him, 
which Jones does not understand. Strait's 
bond is drawing six per cent. Who pays that? 
Jones is the people — he must pay it, because 
there is nobody else to pay it. This will take 
another sixty dollars from Jones and hand it 
over to Strait ; this sixty dollars goes direcdy 
from Jones' pocket into Strait's. Taking sixty 



54 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

dollars from Jones and giving it to Strait 
widens the gap another hundred and twenty- 
dollars. The whole distance is now one hun- 
dred and eighty dollars. Quite a gap for one 
year, is it not? 

Now, if Jones understood this, and knew just 
how it is being accomplished, he would de- 
stroy the system which robs him, and Shylock 
knows it. Hence, he has the press and orators 
telling Jones ''not to worry about bonds; they 
don't cost him anything, unless he drinks whisky 
or uses tobacco — if he does, there is a litde 
revenue to pay, which goes to pay interest on 
bonds,'* etc. 

To get the sixty dollars, to pay the interest 
on Strait's bond every year, it is arranged to 
have the Government come around on the 
blind side, and tax it out of Jones in a way 
which he will not understand, as he would if the 
tax collector came around every year, and com- 
pelled him to shell out sixty dollars in cash. 
No part of the money paid by Jones to his 
county collector goes to pay the expenses of 
the General Government. The interest on 
government bonds, salaries of officers, etc,, are 
paid mainly from duties on imports, and Jones 
pays it, when he purchases goods. 

To give you some idea of how Jones has 



AS A NATION. 55 

been paying the interest on Strait's bond, I 
will copy a short list of goods, on which he 
pays taxes for that purpose. The latest report 
I have before me is for 1879, entitled ''Trade 
and Commerce," published by the Treasury 
Department, at Washington. Some slight 
changes in the tariff have been made. We be- 
lieve the duties on spices have been largely 
removed, but no very material change has taken 
place. Of course, you will understand that the 
importer pays these duties in the first instance ; 
but he must add the amount so paid, to the 
price of the goods when he sells them to Jones. 
It is an indirect way of taxing the people. The 
duties paid on imported goods I shall denomi- 
nate as taxes paid by the people, which it is. 
In 1879, duties ranged as follows: 

Cotton goods range from 7J cents a 

square yard, to 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, $16,933,777.97. 

Taxes paid by the people .... $6,576,252 50 
Corset cloth, valued at $6 per doz. ; du- 
ties, $2 per dozen. Over $6 per dozen, 
duties 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, $407,229.50. 

Taxes paid by American women . 143,722 43 

Embroidery — Duties, 35 per cent. 
Amount imported, $2,913,433.00. 

Taxes paid by American women . 1,019,701 55 



56 



WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 



Flax — On goods made of flax: towels, 
canvass, thread, lace, etc. ; the lowest 
duty on any of them is 30 per cent., 
and the average is nearly 40. 

Amount imported, $16,149,301.10. 

Taxes paid by the people .... $5,442,750 86 

Feuits — 

Dried plums, 2J cents per pound. 

Raisins, 2 J cents per pound. 

Figs, 2 J cents per pound. 

Lemons and Oranges, duties 20 per cent. 

and shelled almonds, 10 p^r cent. 

Amount imported, $10,295,774.75. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 3,004,780 08 

Furs— Imported, $2,778,291.81. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 571,121 16 

Iron bars, chains, bar iron, cut nails, 
boiler, cast butts, hinges, horse- 
SHOE NAILS — On some of the above- 
mentioned iron the duties are as high as 
9 cents per pound. 

Amount imported, $5,399,760.71. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 1,982,029 95 

Hesip — Duties, 3 cents per pound. 
Amount imported, $7,491,503.40. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 1,708,337 20 

Saws, files, rasps — 

'Amount imported, $4,299,604.50. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 1,699,063 74 

Leather — Duties from 10 to 50 per cent. 
Amount imported, $7,532,193.73. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 2,620,471 25 



AS A NATION. 57 

Dress and piece goods — Duties, 60 per 

cent. 
Amount imported, $13,659,736.60. 

Taxes paid by the people .... $8,195,841 96 
Potatoes — Duties, 10 cents per bushel. 
Amount imported, $1,345,919.06. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 394,776 82 

Seeds — Of all kinds, agricultural and 

horticultural. 
Amount imported, $2,278,585.40. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 314,940 47 

Salts— Imported, $1,685,204.39. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 798,647 80 

Feathers — Ornamental, ostrich, vulture, 
cock, and other crude and not dressed, 
colored or manufactured, 25 per cent. ; 
Flowers — Artificial and ornamental, or 
parts thereof, of whatever material, not 
otherwise provided, 50 per cent. 
And of those feathers and fancy articles 
toys included, there was imported $3,- 
441,258.97. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 1^776,273 37 

Spices — 

Ginger, duties, 3 cents per pound. 
Cassia, ground, 20 cents per pound. 
Cinnamon, 20 cents per pound. 
Cloves, whole, 5 cents per pound. 
Cloves, ground or otherwise prepared, 

30 cents per pound. 
Mustard, ground in bulk, 10 cents per 

pound. 
Nutmegs, 20 cents per pound. 



58 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Amount imported, $443,373. 

Taxes paid by the people .... $183,529 06 
Peppers — Black, white, grained, 5 cents 
per pound ; ground, 10 cents per pound. 
Amount imported, $524,256.07. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 396,300 85 

Sugar — Duties, 54 per cent. 
Amount imported, $74,077,045.65. 

Taxes paid by the people .... 40,280,957 35 



Total $76,994,556 77 



From the above you will observe that you 
have paid almost eighty million dollars taxes 
on nineteen articles of merchandise, which are 
imported and used in this country. I have se- 
lected such as are most generally used, and 
upon which the duties are heaviest. But you 
are paying tax on between seven and nine 
hundred different articles imported from foreign 
countries* 

When Jones buys sugar, he must pay out one 
dollar and fifty-four cents, in order to get one 
dollar's worth for himself. Thus about fifty- 
four cents of his one dollar and fifty cents has 
gone to pay the interest on Strait's bond and 
other Government expenses. 

Mrs. Jones buys dress goods. The fact that 
over thirteen million dollars' worth was im- 
ported in 1879, shows that they are extensively 



AS A NATION. 59 

used in this country. And, if she buys those 
imported goods — and she does — in fact, they 
are about the best class of goods our laboring 
women can afford to buy — she must pay out 
one dollar and sixty cents to get one dollar's 
worth for herself. The sixty cents goes to pay 
interest on Strait's bond, and the other expenses 
of carrying on the Government. 

When the servant girl works one week for 
two dollars, and spends it for feathers with 
which to adorn her hat, she should remember 
that those feathers are imported, and that more 
than fifty cents of that money has gone to pay 
the interest on Strait's bond. In other words, 
she has worked at least two days of that week 
for the bondholder. I have seen it reported, I 
know not with how much correctness, that the 
assessed valuation of Chicago — the Queen of 
the West and Pride of the Nation — is one hun- 
dred and seventeen millions of dollars. Van- 
derbilt is said to be worth one hundred and 
twenty millions. If the estimate be correct, 
he can purchase and pay for the city of Chi- 
cago, at its assessed valuation, and have three 
millions left. Vanderbilt is drawing more than 
six thousand dollars per day, from the Govern- 
ment, in interest on untaxed bonds. And this 
people — day laborers, servant girls and over- 



60 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

worked housewives — are paying it, as I have 
illustrated above. 

What excuse does the Government, which 
is under the control of the money power, 
have for taxing the people In this way ? Why, 
Shylock says, it is to protect home manufac- 
tures. But you will notice that many of those 
articles imported, upon which there is a heavy 
duty, are not manufactured in this country at 
all. So it can not be said that the tax on those 
articles is to protect the home manufacturer, 
for there is no home manufacturer; a fact which 
gives the lie to Shylock's pretenses at once, 
so far as those goods are concerned. 

Now, let us consider Shylock's pretenses 
with regard to some articles which are manu- 
factured, to some extent, in this country. We 
will take sugar and molasses for example. 
According to a table, which I have before me, 
prepared by Henry Kemp, of Brooklyn, New 
York, in the year iS8i, we imported, in round 
numbers, ($89,000,000) eighty nine million dol- 
lars' worth of sugar and molasses. There was 
manufactured, of these articles, in the United 
States, only ($11,000,000) eleven million dol- 
/ars' worth. The people paid, in taxes, on 
those articles imported, forty-seven million dol- 
lars ($47,000,000), or more than four times as 



AS A NATION. 6 1 

much as the entire crop of home manufactured 
sugar and molasses was worth. Allowing that 
our home manufacturers of those articles were 
able to double the price of their crop in conse- 
quence of the tariff, their gain would then be 
($5,500,000) five million five hundred thousand 
dollars. 

Now, this strange fact stares you in the face. 
You paid $47,000,000 in taxes, on sugar and 
molasses, that the home manufacturer might 
gain $5,500,000. That is protection, with a 
vengeance. 

Do you believe that way of taxing the peo- 
ple is to protect home industries, or do you 
begin to mistrust that it is to compel the labor- 
ing people to pay taxes which, if paid at all, 
ought to be paid by the rich? 

"But," say you, **does not Strait, the bond- 
holder, pay a part, since he purchases those 
goods the same as Jones." 

Yes. But notice what a small per cent, he 
pays. If he has a million dollars invested in 
bonds, he pays no more tax than Jones, with 
his thousand dollars invested in land, unless he 
has a larger family to consume more goods. 
Then, too, the bulk of our bonds are held by 
less than two hundred and fifty thousand per- 
sons — five per cent, of the population. Thus, 



62 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ninety-five per cent, of the revenue tax is paid 
by Jones, who represents the people. 
s Look^ over Europe and see what the bond 
system has done there ; and does it not begin 
to tell fearfully on our own country? How long 
can Jones continue to pay Strait's taxes, and 
then pay him interest on his bond besides ? 

For twenty years Jones has paid Strait sixty 
dollars per annum in interest on his bond, 
which, for the whole period, amounts to twelve 
hundred dollars, or two hundred dollars more 
than the first cost of Jones' land. This amount 
has been taken from Jones and given to Strait; 
this, Jones has paid in duties on cotton goods, 
coffee, sugar, etc. ; then, in addidon to all this, 
Jones has paid the local taxes, which Strait 
would have had to pay had his bond been 
taxable as Jones' land is. This adds another 
twenty dollars per annum to Jones' burdens and 
relieves Strait of that much local tax. Twenty 
dollars per annum for twenty years amounts 
to four hundred dollars. This amount, when 
added to the twelve hundred dollars, which 
Jones has paid Strait as interest on his bond, 
makes sixteen hundred dollars which Jones has 
lost, because he had to pay Strait's taxes and 
interest on his bond. 



AS A NATION. 6^ 

The account now stands as follows: 

Jones paid to Strait interest on bond, twenty years, 

at $60 per year $1,200 

Paid Strait's local taxes twenty years, at $20 per 

year , . 400 

Total loss $1,600 

Strait has saved local taxes twenty years, at $20 

per year $400 

Drawn interest from Jones on bond twenty years, 

at $60 per year 1,200 

Total gain $1,600 

It will be seen that what Jones has lost Strait 
has gained, Jones having lost sixteen hundred 
dollars and Strait having gained that much. 
The gap between the two men is now $3,200. 
Now, remember that, in addition to all this, 
Jones must pay Strait the full face value of 
his bond. Great God ! what is to become of 
Jones ? 

It has been objected that, in the above cal- 
culation, I do not recognize the fact that Jones 
makes his thousand dollar investment pay him a 
large per cent. That fact has no right to enter 
into the calculation. Of course Jones makes 
his labor yield him an income, else he would 
very soon become bankrupt. Mr. Strait has 
equally an opportunity to make his labor yield 



64 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

him an Income, outside of his bond ; for his 
labor is [his, the same as Jones'. But all this 
does not affect the fact that the bond system 
gives Strait an opportunity to invest his money, 
so as to compel Jones, not only to pay his taxes, 
but pay him interest on his bond also. 

I do not claim that the above figures show 
the exact difference between the people and 
the bondholders with an equal amount in- 
vested, as illustrated by Jones and Strait; but 
they are approximately correct, and they tell a 
fearful story of the cruelty of the untaxable 
bond system. 

It has cost Jones much hard labor and many 
back-aches to pay all that mofiey over to Strait 
and support his family besides, and when grass- 
hoppers or blight has visited his crop he has 
almost given up in despair. But nothing 
harms Strait's bond — come grasshoppers, come' 
hog cholera, come tornado, come blight, or 
mildew, Strait's bond draws interest just the 
same, and Jones must pay it, if it takes his last 
cow. 

Now, this long-continued draft upon Jones 
has placed him where he must put forth his 
best efforts, and practice the most rigid econo- 
my, to make ends meet at the end of the year. 
The grasshoppers destroy his crops for two 



AS A NATION. 65 

years in succession, and he finds himself five 
hundred dollars in debt. Still he must continue 
to pay Strait's taxes and the interest on his 
bond. 

In addition to all this, Strait has managed to 
have the currency contracted, so as to lower 
the price of what little the grasshoppers have 
left, which has placed Jones where he must 
borrow money until he can raise another crop. 
Well, the same policy that has made Jones a 
borrower, has placed Strait in a good condition 
to go to banking. He managed to get into 
Congress and made laws that enabled him 
to grow rich from Jones' earnings, as above 
illustrated. He has taken a share of those 
ill-gotten dollars to pay a shameless press to 
deceive Jones into votuig to uphold the very 
monetary system that has made him and his 
good wife old before their time, and finally in- 
volved them hopelessly in debt. Well, Jones 
must go to borrowing and Strait is going to 
banking. Strait takes the same bond that has 
robbed Jones, directly and indirectly, of eighty 
dollars every year, for twenty years, and, along 
with others, lodges it with the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and the Government counts him out 
ninety per cent, of Its value in national bank 
currency, at one per cent., or, 1 might say, at 
5— D. » 



66 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

about the cost of manufacturing, which is the 
same as giving it to him. He is now ready to 
ploan it to Jones at ten per cent. Jones goes to 
Strait and says : 

**Mr. Strait, I want to borrow five hundred 
dollars; can you let me have it?'' 

Strait: "I always like to help my friends. 
What security can you give?" 

Jones: **I will give you a mortgage on my 
land. It is rather hard to mortgage my home, 
but I suppose I must do so My crops have 
been destroyed for two years, I was obliged 
to go in debt, even for seed, and I borrowed 
money of my neighbor to pay my taxes." (The 
poor man did not realize that he was paying 
Strait's taxes, too, and that fifty-four per cent, 
of the money he was paying for sugar, was go- 
ing to help pay interest on Strait's bond.) 

Strait: *'We don't let money without good 
security ; so drav/ a mortgage representing one- 
half the cash value of your land, if you expect 
to get money here, sir." 

Jones draws a mortgage calling for five hun- 
dred dollars. Strait deducts the interest in 
advance, counts down four hundred and fifty 
dollars to Jones, and records a mortgage against 
him for five hundred.* 

'^ Althouish the national banker is not allowed to receive real estate 
mortgages as security for money loaned, yet the effect upon Jones is pre- 
cisely the same, inasmuch as his property is the only basis upon which he 
can procure a loan from the. bank. 



AS A NATION. 6^ 

Jones is now not only paying Strait's taxes, 
and the interest on his bond, but he is paying 
him ten per cent, interest on money which he. 
Strait, obtained from the Government at onel 
per cent. 

Now, I submit the proposition, can our liber- 
ties long endure with such a monetary system 
as this? Another twenty years and property 
in the United States will be as much concen- 
trated as it is in England. So savagely has 
the money power pushed their schemes of rob- 
bery, for the last twenty years, that all that has 
saved us from bread riots, as violent and bloody 
as any that ever raged in Europe, has been 
our almost unlimited public domain. Men have 
been continually leaving the densely populated 
Eastern States, and making their homes on the 
broad prairies of the West. In this way we 
have escaped bread riots, but not the effects 
of Shylock's monetary system. Most men 
who set their faces westward were poor, and 
found themselves obliged to go In debt in 
order to get a start. The damnable, cruel 
policy, inaugurated by the gold gamblers of a 
barbarous age, followed the sturdy plowman to 
the frontier, shrunk the volume of money, low- 
ered the price of his produce, and robbed him 
of his new home. 



i?f Jit'^ : 



68 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

I believe my estimate low when I say that, 
at least, one -fourth of the farmers who went on 
to the public lands, between i860 and 1872, 
finding themselves unable to bear the burdens 
heaped upon them by the contraction policy 
and the untaxable bond system, are watching 
their opportunity to sell their farm.s, so as to 
have enough left after paying their debts, to 
push their way still farther towards the setting 
sun, in the hope of drawing their last breath 
in a home free from debt, and depositing their 
mortal remains in soil safe from the orreed of 
the money power. 

But, you ask: " How can we avoid issuing 
bonds, when the Government is in need of 
money? Should we become involved in war, 
and the Treasury become exhausted, how 
would the Government raise money to meet 
the emergency?" 

I answer, how does the Government raise men 
to meet such emergencies? It drafts them, if 
they do not volunteer. I would have the Gov- 
ernment raise money in the same manner: tax 
the wealth of the nation, and compel it to pay. 
Is a rich man's money more sacred than a poor 
man's life? 

Here are my sentiments, expressed by Mr. 



AS A NATION. 69 

Kellogg, of Illinois, in Congress, when our 
country was involved in war. He said : 

"Mr. Chairman: I am pained when I sit in my place in 
this House, and hear members talk about the sacredness of 
capital; that the interests of money must not be touched. 
Yes, sir, they will vote six hundred titousand of the flower of the 
American youth for the army, to he sacrificed, without a blushy 
but the great interests of capital must not be touched. 
We have summoned the youth, and they have come. I would 
summon the capital; and if it does not come voluntarily [it 
never did] , before this Republic shall go down, or one star 
be lost, 1 wofild take every cent from the treasury of the 
States, from the treasury of capitalists, from the treasury 
of individuals, and press it into the use of government." 

If the poor man refused to enter the army 
when he was needed, Government forced him 
to enter. It tore him from the embrace of wife 
and children and flung him into the jaws of 
death. When money was needed, did the 
Government go to the rich man and force him 
to pay his money to save the nation's life? No, 
sir; it went to him with a bond, fondled and 
coaxed, offered him gold interest and exempted 
his bond from taxation, thus compelling the 
poor man not only to fight the battles, but to 
pay the debt after the war was over. Was that 
placing capital above labor in the structure of 
the Government? It was placing it above life, 
liberty, and everything that is sweet and dear 



70 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

to the poor man. Every government bond in 
existence is the coined infamy of the money 
power. Every dollar the capitalists invested 
in bonds they should have been compelled to 
pay to the government, in taxes, to defray the 
expenses of the war; they then would have 
been paying for the protection of their own 
property. That would have been paying taxes 
on their property, instead of putting it into 
non taxable, interest-bearing bonds, which com- 
pelled the laborer to pay, not only the capital- 
ists* local taxes, but to pay him interest on his 
bond. When the Government wants money it 
should tax property and get it; it should not 
borrow it of the rich, exempt it from taxation, 
and thus compel the poor to pay if. 

Is this sound argument? In my judgment 
it is according to the plainest principles of 
justice and equal rights, and I never expect to 
meet the man who can successfully refute it, 

THE farmer's outlook. 

That moneyed capital is making rapid head- 
way against our noble farming community, is a 
solemn truth, that can be demonstrated to a 
mathematical certainty. 

To remove all doubt as to our intention to 
be fair in this investigation, we will not make 



AS A NATION. 7 1 

the calculation on any other basis than that of 
gold. Nor will we select the producers' most 
prosperous year, and compare it with a year, 
when the price of commodities v/as the lowest. 
But we v^ill take the average of five years, 
from 1865 to 1869 inclusive, and compare that 
period with the boom year of 1880. It can 
not then be said that so many farmers had gone 
to the army that it made it prosperous for those 
left at home, nor that the prices they received 
were paid in depreciated currency v/hich was not 
money. The producers and mechanics had 
returned to their homes, and were consuming 
more of the products of the farm than they 
had been consuming while in the army. This 
one fact well considered, will annihilate all the 
sophistry used by Shylock and his subsidized 
press, to make the farmers believe that it was 
the absence of men from their farms and the 
demand created by armies in the field that 
caused them to receive high prices for their 
produce ; for corn, wheat, pork, beef, and indeed 
nearly all the products of the farm, were more 
than twenty per cent, higher, on a gold basis, 
in the New York market, during the six years 
immediately following the war than they were 
during the four years which the army was kept 
in the field. 



72 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The list of prices from which I have made 
these calculations will be found on pages 278 
and 279 of the American Ahnanac for 1878, 
published by the Librarian at Washington, and 
compiled from the Bankers' Almanac and the 
Commercial and Financial Chronicle. 

The average price of wheat from 1865 to 
1S69 inclusive was $2.17^ in currency. The 
average value of a greenback dollar in gold 
during those years was 70.6 cents. Below will 
be found 'the gold price of wheat, oats, mess 
pork and corn in the New York market at the 
respective periods above mentioned : 

1865 to 1869. 1880. 

Wheat $1.53 $1.40 

Oats .65 .50 

Corn .863-2^ .70 

Mess Pork, per bbl 18.72 15.00 

$26.76 $17.60 

From this table it will be seen that the last 
decade, closing with the great business boom 
of 1880, brought to the farmer a shrinkage of 
more than twenty per cent, in the gold value 
of his produce. 

To illustrate more clearly the effect upon the 
farmer, we will say that from one hundred and 
sixty acres of land, he sells wheat, corn, oats 



AS A NATION. ']'^ 

and pork, at the average price, from 1865 ^^ 
1869 and 1880, as follows: 



No. 




1865 to 1869. 
Price. Am't. 


1880. 
Price. Am't. 


500 bush. 


Wheat at . . . 


$1.53 $765 


$1.40 $700 


600 bush. 


Oats at ... . 


.65 390 


.50 300 


25 bbls. 


Mess Pork at . 


18.72 860 


15.00 700 


1,000 bush. 


Corn at. . . . 


.86 468 


.70 375 



$2,483 $2,075 

2,075 



Difference 



Here we find that the difference against such 
a farmer in the shrinkage of the value of the 
products of his labor, which is his capital, is 
four hundred and eight dollars in gold. 

No sane man can fail to see that the power 
of the producing class to get gold is not as 
great, by more than tv^renty per cent., as it was 
ten years ago. 

But has the result been to change his rela- 
tions to the money power? and, if so, in what 
way? Well, farmers, the purchasing power of 
your labor, or the product of your labor, which 
is the same thing, has decreased more than 
twenty per cent., while the purchasing power 
of money has increased more than twenty per 
cent, since 1870. That is to say, a dollar of 
Shylock's gold will purchase twenty per cent. 



74 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

more of the products of your labor than it 
would ten years ago, while it will require twen- 
ty per cent, more of the products of your labor 
to purchase one dollar of his gold. The gap 
has thus widened forty per cent, between you 
and the national banks, the trust and loan 
companies, the bondholder, and the money 
power generally. 

It is as though you had stood abreast with 
the money power at a given line, both desirous 
of advancing in the same direction. The 
money power has advanced twenty paces ; you 
have not tarried at the line, even ; you have 
fallen back twenty; you are now forty paces 
behind in the race. 

Farmers, these are startling facts which you 
ought to consider and understand, if you would 
remain in possession of the soil. That I am 
not overstating the danger that threatens the 
farmer, will appear from the following, which 
appeared in the New York Times, under date 
of August 12, 1877. Farmers and toilers, read 
it. I extract the following: 

"Is there deliverance? There seems to be but one rem-^ 
edy, and it must come — a change of ownership of the soil, 
and a creation of a class of land owners on the one hand,^ 
and of tenant farmers on the other — something similar ia 
both cases to that which has long existed, and now exists^ 



AS A NATION. 75 

in the older countries of Europe, and similar, also, to a 
system that is common in our own State of California. * 
Everything seems ripe for the change ; half the farms in 
the country are ready to be sold if buyers would only ap- 
pear, and hundreds that can now be bought for less than 
their value twenty or thirty years ago, need only judicious 
outlay to make them as productive as ever. Few farmers 
can hope to provide their sons with farms of their own, 
and there is no place for these young men in the over- 
crowded cities." 

In high glee over the bright outcome for the 
farmer, which its elucidation of the subject 
makes appear inevitable as a result of his farm- 
ing as a tenant instead of as owner of the 
soil, the Times further says : 

*' And then will begin a new era in agriculture, and one 
that seems to be very desirable." 

I commend you to a careful perusal of the 
whole article, as published In the Times. Such 
doctrine is cruel, unpatriotic and dangerous. 
It looks to a despotism. It would place capital 
above labor. It would reduce our noble farm- 
ing community to a level with the pauper labor 
of Europe. Such doctrine is worthy of a hire- 
ling press, but Is utterly unworthy of freemen. 

I abhor the Times for its base attempt to 
convince the people that they are Incapable 
of farming on their own account, and that their 



76 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

condition would be improved by becoming ten- 
ants, receiving so much ol the results of their 
labor as their masters might see fit to give 
them. I have no feeling but that of scorn for 
the man who would curse the virgin soil of 
America with the cruel tenant system of Eu- 
rope. No language can measure my hatred 
of a spirit so inhuman and insolent as to tell 
the frugal farmer, with the example of Ireland 
before him, that he cannot hope to see his son 
settled on a farm of his own. What? No 
place on earth for the farmer's son but to be 
the slave of a master on, perchance, the very 
farm his own hand has helped to carve from 
the forest! "Do you look for the advent of 
such a system?" Does not the New York 
Times boast that it has come in California al- 
ready? And the happy editor is looking for- 
ward with joyous anticipation to the time when 
it shall prevail here. Yes — that tenant system 
— a cruel, grasping, tyrant, having devastated 
Europe, turns his eyes toward the setting sun, 
and beholding our own beautiful, happy West- 
ern world, admires and covets, he creeps 
stealthily in, and plants his feet upon the most 
beautiful spot of earth the God of nature ever 
smiled upon, and pollutes the sweetest air ever 
breathed by mortal lungs. 



•^ 
/• 



AS A NATION. • 77 

Who does not know that thirty years ago, 
California was Earth's paradise for the poor 
man. Since then, the State has been largely 
handed over to the tenant system, and capital 
has closed the door of advancement against 
the laborer there, as Mr. Lincohi feared it 
would everywhere. The Times may take cour- 
age, for since it published that article in 1877, 
the European capitalists have purchased large 
tracts of land in different parts of the Union, 
for the same purpose. The tenant system is 
not only firmly rooted, and holding an absolute 
control over the soil of California, but Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Missouri, 
Colorado, Texas and Arkansas are beginning 
to feel its blighting touch. 

Read the following from the American Non- 
conformist, published at Tabor, Iowa, bearing 
date December 6, 1883: 

LAND ROBBEKIES. 

A FEW OP THE MANY GEABS OF ENGLISH LAND-THIEVES. 

Acres. 

English Syndicate No. 1 (in Texas) 4,500,000 

English Syndicate No. 3 (in Texas) 3,000,000 

Sir Edward Reid, K. C. B. (in Florida) . . . 2,000,000 

English Syndicate headed by S. Philpotts . . 1,800,000 

C. R. , & L. Co. of London, Marquis of Tweedale 1 ,750,000 

Phillips, Marshall & Co., of London .... 1,300,000 



78 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

German Syndicate $1,100,000 

Anglo-American Syndicate, headed by Mr. 

Rogers, L 750,000 

An English Company (in Mississippi) .... 700,000 

Duke of Sutherland ............ 425,000 

British Land and Mortgage Company .... 320,000 

Capt. Whalley, M. P., for Peterboro, England 310,000 

Missouri Land Company, Edinburgh, Scotland 300,000 

Hon. Robert Tennant, of London 230,000 

Scotch Land Company, Dundee, Scotland. . . 247,666 

LordDunmore '. 100,000 

Benjamin Newgas, Liverpool, England . . . 100,000 

Lord Houghton 60,000 

Lord Dunraven 60,000 

English Land Company (in Florida) .... 50,000 
England Land Company, represented by B. 

Newgas 50,000 

An English capitalist (in Arkansas) 50,000 

Albert Peel, M. P., Leicestershire, England . 10,000 

Sir John Lester Kaye, Yorkshire, England. . 5,000 

George Grant, of London (in Kansas) . . . 100,000 
An English Syndicate represented by Close 

Bros, (in Wisconsin) 110,000 

A Scotch Company (in California) 140,000 

M. Ellerhauser, of Nova Scotia (in W. Virginia 600,000 

A Scotch Syndicate (in Florida) 500,000 

A. Boysen, Danish Consul at Milwaukee. . . 50,000 
Missouri Land and L. S. Co., of Edinburgh, 

p Scotland 165,000 

English Syndicate (in Florida) . 59,000 

Marquis of Alesbury 55,051 

Duke of Beaufort 51,085 

Duke of Bedford 87,507 

Earl of Brownlow 57,799 



AS A NATION. 79 

Earl of Carlisle $78,540 

Earl of Cawdor . . 51,538 

Duke of Cleveland . 106,650 

Earl of Derby 56,698 

Duke of Devonshire 148,629 

Lord Leconfield 66,101 

Lord of Londesborough 52,655 

Earl of Lonsdale 67,950 

Duke of Northumberland 191,480 

Duke of Portland 55,259 

Earl of Powis 64,095 

Duke of Rutland 70,039 

Lady Willoughby . 59,912 

Sir W. W. Wynn 91,032 

Earl of Yarborough '. 55,370 

Total 22,409,056 

The compiler of the above figures does not 
pretend to give all the land owned by foreign 
capitalists, for the undoubted purpose of ten- 
ant farming; but his figures show an area 
about four times as large as the State of 
Massachusetts, which has a population of nearly 
two millions. 

Adding what European capitalists have pur- 
chased in other States, to that which is already 
used for that purpose in California, and we have 
what in other countries would be considered an 
area, vast enough on which to found a mighty 
empire, dedicated to a system of tenantry the 
history of which, I would to God. our laboringr 



8o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

people better understood. It had a small be- 
ginning, and its growth in Europe has never 
been half as rapid as it is in the United States 
at the present time. But, as it advanced there, 
in the absorption of the land, it increased in 
severity and cruelty to an extent which would 
defy human belief, were it not that poor suffer- 
ing down trodden Ireland daily thunders the 
awful story in the dull ears of a thoughtless 
world. When a man's necessities force him to 
become a tenant, what hope is there that he 
will ever become anything else? Are not the 
very necessities which forced him there likely 
to keep him there? Thererare exceptions, of 
course; and it is true that at the present time, 
one might begin a tenant, and with health and 
good luck, gain enough to purchase a home of 
his own, or to get on to the public lands and make 
one. Rut the man is now a voter who will live 
to see the last hundred squares miles of public 
land pass from the possession of the Govern- 
ment. Then what? Why the price of land is 
continually rising, and as land rises rent rises ; 
and soon, a piece of land which would yield 
support for a family, will be beyond the pur- 
chasing power of the net earnings of half a life 
time. As land increases in value the people 
lose their power to purchase, and as the people 



AS A NATION. 8 1 

lose their power to purchase, the landlord gains 
power to raise his rents. Tenants multiply, 
while darker and darker grows the laborer's 
pathway, till he finally stumbles into a pauper's 
grave. To encourage the tenant system in this 
country is to invite despotism for the masses, 
and the New York Times knows it, and that is 
why it invites it. Fellow-countrymen, can you 
not see the animus of the money power? Their 
ropes are deeply and cunningly laid, to make a 
despotism of this Republic. They advise you 
to that which will rob you not only of your land, 
but of your independence, v/herein lies your 
power to resist oppression. 

RAILROADS AND THE PEOPLE. 

Here is a fit place for a brief notice of our 
railroad system and its relations to our happi- 
ness and to the perpetuity of republican liberty. 
While this subject has been talked and written 
about considerably, the people have not thought 
deeply in regard to it. They sometimes find 
fault with unjust discrimination against this or 
that locality, and grumble a little when Jay 
Gould pockets a few millions of their money, 
and here their anxiety seems to end. They 
have no adequate conception of what it all 
means. The dangerous results are lost sight 



82 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of In admiration of the good. The railroads 
have brought the people such unnumbered 
blessings, that an extortion, even If it be large 
in the aggregate, seems small to each individual, 
when compared to the benefit he receives from 
them. 

GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS. 

^The phase of our railroad system, which first 
rivets the attention of the multitude, Is mag- 
nificent and charming. Nor would I have it 
otherwise. There is much that is grand and 
soul stirring In its contemplation. Its progress, 
its vastness, Its varied and ever-varying achieve- 
ments are profitable themes for meditation. 
Nothing In romance is half so wonderful ; her 
highest wrought picture is dull In comparison, 
and her most fanciful story, told fifty years ago, 
not half so far beyond the range of probability 
as the real history of the American railroad 
system would have been, could a prophetic pen 
have written it at that time. Imagine one, en- 
dowed with the power of correct prophesy, 
entering the ofifice of John Quincy Adams in 
1825, just after he had traveled from Massa- 
chusetts to Washington, by coach and on foot, 
to take his seat as chief magistrate of the 
United States, and saying to the new pres- 



AS A NATION. 83 

ident, " Sir, you have just completed a long and 
tedious journey. But only a few years, and 
those who journey hitherward will elect whether 
they will sit on velvet cushions, or repose on| 
beds of down, and travel at the rate of sixty 
miles an hour. Yes, sir; an iron horse shall 
leave this city, dragging a long train of coaches, 
loaded with thousands of human beings ; west- 
ward bound, he shall leap the Potomac, the 
Mississippi, the Missouri, and in less hours than 
you were days journeying from your home to 
this city, he will be passing the flying buffalo on 
the plains of Kansas, or startling the wild deer 
in the Rocky Mountain glen, as he bounds 
along his iron path to deliver his precious 
freight at San Francisco. Bound northward, 
he shall leave Washington City, sweltering be- 
neath a July's sun. Faster than the wind he 
travels, skimming the valleys, darting through 
the forests, plunging through the hills, and 
gliding along the rugged mountain sides of 
New England. A few hours, and he is flying 
up the stony steep, and over the frowning cliffs, 
to mingle his warm breath with the frosty air 
of Mount Washington, in the regions of per- 
petual snow. And his master, who last slept in 
a heat almost tropical, now stands among the 
drifts of snow, whose first flake may have 



84 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

kissed the spot before the American nation was 
born." Picture to yourself the incredulous look 
of the venerable statesman, as he listens to so 
wild a story ; and imagine his total lack of faith 
had the prophet proceeded to declare, *'that 
the path over which this horse must travel, in 
the United States shall be twenty-three miles in 
length in 1830, and in 1876 long enough to 
encircle the earth three times around." Yet all 
this is true, though it be stranger than fiction, 
and this is the brig^ht side of the picture, and 
the only side seen by the multitude. The mul- 
titude sees our railroad system only as a mam- 
moth enterprise — a glorious triumph of Amer- 
ican energy and skill — full of beneficence, scat- 
tering blessings everywhere. The frontiers- 
man, who has been obliged to haul his produce 
fifty miles to market vv^ith a mule team, hails 
with unspeakable delight the approach of the 
train which is to bring the market to his very 
door, and double the value of his farm and its 
products; all at v^^hich I do not complain; it is 
natural and right that he should feel so ; far be 
it from my desire to cultivate anything but a 
generous spirit toward our railroad system. 
But the time has come when the people should 
take the whole matter under consideration. 
Admitting the great usefulness of the rail- 



AS A NATION. 85 

roads, yet It is high time that the other side of 
the picture should be shov/n. The people 
should look, deeply and searchlngly, to ascer- 
tain the moving principle of a power that can 
construct eighty thousand miles of railroad in 
fifty years, reaching every city on the continent 
and moving the merchandise of fifty million 
people from ocean to lake and from lake to 
ocean with as much comparative ease as an 
ordinary farmer moves the crop of ten acres 
from field to barn. 

AVARICE THE MOVING PRINCIPLE. 

A hastily scanned picture may look ever so 
fair at a distance, yet a nearer approach and 
closer scrutiny reveal a deadly enemy lurking 
in the background. 

The great moving principle in our railroad 
system is avarice. I do not say that every man 
who ever invested money in a railroad was ava- 
ricious beyond other men — by no means. Nor 
do I say that no man has advocated, or invested 
money in, railroads who had no object in view 
beyond that of money-making — some men may 
have so invested their money from considera- 
tions of public good, but they are exceptions, 
and very rare at that. 

When men meet to discuss the propriety of 



86 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

building a railroad through a certain section of 
country, they do not advise that it touch a par- 
ticular settlement to the end that the people 
residing there may have a more convenient 
way of getting their 'produce to market — that 
is not the winning argument — it is only a 
zephyr, an evening's breeze, moving gently 
through the trees — heard, but not noticed; 
the prospect of a paying investment is the 
cyclone that sweeps all before it. The all- 
important question with them is, " Will it pay 
in dollars and cents?" 

Was a company ever knov/n to build a rail- 
road to accommiodate the people? *'No," say 
you, "and we do not blame them." Very well, 
I only wish to make you see clearly that the 
main spur, the controlling power, in all railroad 
enterprise is love of gain. When the people 
come to feel the full force of this truth, they 
will see more clearly their true relations to the 
railroads, and understand that the real motive 
that sent the engine flying to their cities, decked 
in such beauty, was to get their money. While 
it was understood, by the projector of the en- 
terprise, that comforts and conveniences would 
come to the community as a result, yet he con- 
sidered them as so many inducements for the 
people to pay their money over to him. Well, 



AS A NATION. 8/ 

IS that any reason why the people should assail 
the railroads and cripple or discourage them? 
Not in the least; but it is an all-important rea- 
son why they should be on their guard. Our 
system of railroads is the result of a combina- 
tion of capital in the hands of men who, as a 
rule, first obtained it, not by practicing benev- 
olence and returning cent for cent, but by driv- 
ing the sharpest possible bargains ; and their 
greed for gain has grown with their multiplied 
chances to get it. 

To say that the railroad corporations, spurred 
on by avarice, and aided by the confidence and 
apathy of the people, have come to be resolute 
and powerful enemies of Republican institu- 
tions, is to state it very mildly, as the people 
will discover, if they ever undertake to compel 
them to loose their cruel grip upon the throat 
of this nation. 

That I do not over estimate their power or 
disposition to be despotic, will appear from 
the following quotations, and which I take from 
Scribner^s Monthly for December, 1880, which 
appeared over the signature of F. B. Thurber, 
President of the Anti-Monopoly League in 
New York: 



88 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

THE RAILROADS THREATENING THE SUPREME COURT. 

**0n the twenty-seventh day of January^ 1880, Mr, 
Frankhn B. Go wen, President of the Philadelphia aniS 
Reading Railroad, in an argument before the Committee 
on Commerce of the House of Representatives of the 
United States, in Washington, stated : ' I have heard the 
counsel of the Pemisylvanm Railroad Company, standing in the 
Supreme CouH of Pennsylvania^ threaten that court with tlie 
displeasure of his clients if it decided against them, and all the 
blood in my body tingled with shame at the humiliating spectacle.* 
In the Associated Press reports this was suppressed, and 
only when the argument was published by Mr, Gowen was 
this remarkable statement verified to those who heard it." 

Before the Supreme Court of a great State 
there stood a raih'oad corporation, in the person 
of its counsel, and threatened that august tribu- 
nal with its displeasure if it decided against it. 

Now if there is any one department of the 
Government, State or National, legislative or 
judicial, that is dearer to this nation than an- 
other, it is the Supreme Court department. It 
is the people's last resort to get their differences 
honestly adjusted. Capital and local interests 
or unwise legislative enactments may bias juries 
or a single judge in the courts below, but, in 
the Supreme Bench, counsel is multiplied, clothed 
with the dignity of age, and fortified with the 
wisdom of the highest legal learning attain- 
able, — all that the scales of justice may be held 



AS A NATION. 89 

with the steady hand of constitutional law. 
There the people demand that the pettifogger 
shall not enter, and that corporate wealth shall 
leave its robes of power at the threshold; that 
the peasant and the millionaire shall enter at 
the same door, stand upon the same equality, 
and, with uncovered heads, bow in reverence 
before the majesty of the law, enacted by the 
sovereign power of a free people. 

Our Supreme Courts are associated, in the 
minds of the people, with all that is grave, 
grand, just and powerful; they are omnipotent, 
in State and Nation, in determining all the 
rights of the citizen under the law, and when 
the representative of a corporation can walk 
boldly into that august presence and, in effect, 
ask the supreme tribunal sitting in judgment 
there, to violate its sacred office in the interest 
of capital, and not be hurled into a dungeon by 
the Court he has insulted, the people want to 
know it. If it has come to this, that the high- 
est tribunal of justice is cowering before asso- 
ciated capital, if the last repository of the 
power of the ballot has been seized, if the very 
arsenal of American liberty has surrendered to 
the enemy, the people ought to know it. And 
why do they not know it? Why! Simply be- 
cause a few wealthy newspaper men have joined 



go WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

together and arranged with telegraph compa- 
nies to transmit news over the wires at lower 
rates than a single paper can get it. The com- 
bination is called the Associated Press. Minor 
newspapers can not compete with it, and, con 
sequently, are obliged to depend almost entirely 
upon it for their telegraphic news, and the As- 
sociated Press is owned and controlled by the 
money power. A corporation was behind that 
threat ; hence it was that the astounding state- 
ment, communicated to the congressional com- 
mittee by Mr. Gowen, was suppressed; thus it. 
is that while the capitalists are controlling our 
Supreme Courts, a venal press is giving aid and 
comfort to liberty's deadliest enemy by keeping- 
the facts from the people. 

Some idea of the extent to which railroad, 
corporations are controlling the machinery of* 
this Government, by manipulating our legisla- 
tures and tampering with the people's rights- 
gene rally, may be gathered from extracts from 
the report of the Hepburn Committee, which. 
was appointed by the New York Legislature 
to inquire into railroad management in that 
State. The committee, according to Mr. 
Thurber, reported as follows : 

*'It is further in evidence that it has been the custom of 
the managers of the Erie Kail way, from year to year in the? 



AS A NATION. 9 1 

past, to spend large sums to control elections and to influence 
legislation. In the year 1868 more than one million was 
disbursed from the Treasury for extra and legal services. 
(For interesting items see Mr. Watson's testimony, pages 
336 and 337.) 

*'Mr. Gould, when last on the stand examined in relation 
to various vouchers shoY/n him, admitted the payment, dur- 
ing the three years prior to 1872, of large sums to Barber, 
Tweed, and others, to infiuence legislation or elections. 
These amounts were charged in the India rubber account. 
The memory of this witness was very defective as to details, 
and he could only remember large transactions, but could 
distinctly recall that he had been in the habit of sending 
money into the numerous districts all over the State, either 
to control nominations or elections for Senators and Mem- 
bers of Assembly, considering, as a rule, such investments 
paid better than to wait till the men got to Albany, and 
added the significant remark, upon being asked a question, 
that it would be as impossible to specify the numerous 
instances as it would to recall the numerous freight cars 
sent over the Erie road from day to day." (See testimony, 
page 556.) 

The report of the committee, says Mr. Thur- 
ber, concludes as follows : 

*' It is not reasonable to suppose that the Erie Railway 
has been alone in the corrupt use of money for the purpose 
named ; but the sudden revelation in the direction of this 
company has laid bare a chapter in the secret history of j 
railroad management such as has not been permitted before. 
It exposed the recklesss and prodigal use of money, wrung 
from the people, to purchase the election of the people's 
representatives J and to bribe them when in office. 



92 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

*' According to Mr. Gould, his operations extended into 
four different States. It was his custom to contribute 
money to influence both nominations and elections." 

The above report of the committee is based 
on such testimony as I have quoted, and the 
following, given by Mr. Gould, before the same 
committee : 

** I do not know how much I paid toward helping friendly 
men. We had four States to look after, and we had to suit 
our politics to circumstances. In a Democratic district I 
was a Democrat; in a Eepublican district I was a Republi- 
can, and in a doubtful district I was doubtful; but in every 
district, and at all times, I have always been an Erie man." 

Here is the character of the great railroad 
king, who admits, under oath, that he spent a 
million of dollars to control elections, etc., in 
a single year. How much did Tom Scott and 
Vanderbilt spend? And are not some, if not 
all these men, together with Belmont and the 
other money kings, heavily interested in the 
New York Tribune^ World, and other leading 
papers, and through that channel controlling 
both old parties in the interest of money and 
railroad monopolies? 

LANDS IN POSSESSION OF RAILROADS. 

Let us reflect for one moment on the vast 
sweep of territory now in possession of those 
unprincipled railroad kings. 



AS A NATION. 93 

How proudly we contemplated our public 
domain twenty years ago, stretching away in 
silent vastness toward the setting sun ! We 
looked upon it as so much of God's material 
bosom, awaiting the touch of the plowshare to 
yield plenty ; purchased with the blood of pa- 
triots, and dedicated to the sons of toil, a phil- 
anthropic nation held it as a sacred gift to the 
lowly of earth, inviting them to come and live, 
to help dot the prairie with hamlets and the 
hillsides with their flocks and herds. Is it not 
a chilling thought that, of the tillable portion 
of that domain, not less than one-half is in the 
hands of wealthy corporations, forever beyond 
the reach of the actual settler, unless he can 
purchase it and pay their price for it? 

Americans! can you realize that there has 
been given to those corporations more broad 
acres than there are in the States of MAINE, 
NEW HAMPSHIRE, VERMONT, MASSA- 
CHUSETTS, RHODE ISLAND, CONNEC- 
TICUT, NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, 
MARYLAND, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW 
YORK, OHIO and INDIANA? It would 
require more than two and one-half times the 
present population of the United States to 
populate the railroad lands as densely as the 
State of Massachusetts is populated; and if 



94 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

all the inhabitants of the United States and 
Territories were settled upon the railroad lands, 
the population would be about the same den- 
sity as that of the State of Ohio. (For density 
of population in States, and land grants to rail- 
roads, see Ajnerican Almanac, pages 237, 8, 9, 
and 281.) 

What playthings the capitalists have made 
of the American voters! They have raised 
false issues, got elected to Congress, then con- 
tracted Vv^ith themselves to give themselves a 
certain quantity of the public land to build rail- 
roads, usually more in value than the roads 
have cost when completed; they then vote 
themselves as many government bonds for 
construction purposes as they see fit; then 
double the price of government land adjoining 
theirs, and thus compel the people to pay for 
lands which have been given to the corpora- 
tions. Mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, sandy 
deserts and uninhabitable swamps are included 
in the estimate of the quantity of the land now 
owned by the Government. The railroads 
have generally been permitted to select theirs, 
and probably not more than one acre in four 
of the land now in possession of the Govern- 
ment is desirable for farming purposes; at 
the rate at which it is now being settled, 



AS A NATION. 95 

another twenty years and very little desirable 
land will remain in possession of the Govern- 
ment. Then the railroad lands, being all that 
are left, will be in demand— those desiring to 
cultivate the soil must either purchase or rent 
of the corporations ; which means, more of the 
tenant system, more rent— increasing millions 
are paying higher and higher tribute to capital 
— the people's hard-earned dollars are multi- 
plying in the pockets of the railroad kings, like 
snowfiakes in a mountain gorge. 

Fellow citizens, what an empire has ' been 
handed over to those capitalists ! how vast its 
possessions ! how unscrupulous and unpitying 
its rulers ! The extent of their power over the 
property of the people and destiny of the 
Republic, may be determined by the following 
from Mr. Thurber's letter, before quoted: 

"In 1874, the Senate of the United States, in response 
to a general demand, appointed a special committee on 
transportation, composed of William Windom, of Minne- 
sota; John Sherman, of Ohio; Roscoe Conkling, of New 
York; H. G. Davis, of West Virginia; T. M. Norwood, 
of Georgia; J. W. Johnson, of Virginia; John H. Mitch- 
ell, of Oregon, and S. B. Conover, of Florida. The com- 
mittee occupied the entire summer of 1874 in making an 
exhaustive examination of the subject, and in their report 
we find the following : 

"In the matter of taxation, there are to-day four men, 



96 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

representing the four great trunk lines between Chicago 
and New York, who possess, and who not unfrequently 
exercise, powers which the Congress of the United States 
would not venture to exert. They may at any time, and 
for any reason satisfactory to themselves, by a single stroke 
of the pen, reduce the value of property in this country by 
hundreds of millions of dollars. An additional charge of 
five cents per bushel, on the transportation of cereals, would 
have been equivalent to a tax of forty-five millions of dol- 
lars on the crop of 1873. No Congress would dare to exer- 
cise so vast a power except upon a necessity of the most 
imperative nature, and yet these gentlemen exercise it 
whenever it suits their supreme will and pleasure, without 
explanation or apology. With the rapid and inevitable 
^progress of combination and consolidation, these colossal 
organizations are daily becoming stronger and more imperi- 
ous. The day is not distant, if it has not already arrived, 
when it will be the duty of the statesman to inquire whether 
there is less danger in leaving the property and industrial 
interests of the people thus wholly at the mercy of a few 
men who recognize no responsibility but to their stockhold- 
ers, and no principle of action but personal and corporate 
aggrandizement, than in adding somewhat to the power 
and patronage of a government directly responsible to the 
people, and entirely under their control." — [Report of 
United States Senate Committee on Transportation Routes, 
page 158.] 

The above quotation explains itself. I only 
desire to concentrate your thoughts upon one 
statement made by this committee, viz : 

**Four men, representing the four great trunk 
lines between Chicago and New York, can, by 



AS A NATION. 97 

a single stroke of the pen, lower the value of 
property in the United States many hundred 
millions of dollars." Such a statement, coming 
from a Senate committee, who had every facility 
for ascertaining the truth, ought to stir freemen. 
A people alive to their interests and proud of 
their independence, should blush with shame 
at such startling and humiliating intelligence. 
A people, not sunken in dangerous apathy, 
would send forth their protestations from farm 
and mill, from bench and pulpit, until the very 
air was throbbing with their indignation. The 
thought that in less than fifty years a power 
has grown up among us that can lower the val- 
ue of property in the United States many hund- 
red millions of dollars by a single stroke of the 
pen, and that power wielded by four unprinci- 
pled speculators, who, as the committee say, 
^'recognize no principle of action save their own 
aggrandizement,'' is too startling a fact for a 
people to sleep over who really appreciate lib- 
erty. 

Every cent added to the cost of freighting 
produce to market lowers the value of the land 
on Vv^hich that produce is raised. And this 
principle holds good not only with regard to 
land, but the value of all merchandise shipped 
over our railroads is affected in the same way, 
7— D. 



98 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Hence, it is seen that the power of the rail- 
road corporations over the value of property 
in the United States is almost absolute. 

The Senate committee declared that those 
colossal organizations were daily growing 
stronger and more imperious ; that is to say, 
they are growing more and more arrogant, dic- 
tatorial, lordly, commanding, despotic. What 
more Is needed to confirm the truth of that 
statement, than the fact that the very men. who 
served on that committee, are now silent in the 
presence of those same corporations? They 
cov/er before the very organizations which they 
declared were exercising a power over this peo- 
ple, such as Congress would not dare to exer- 
cise except upon the most Imperative necessity. 
The members of that committee once had the 
courage and manliness to depict the dangers of 
railroad monopoly and warn the people of ap- 
proaching despotism. The despot has com- 
manded them to hush, and they bow to his will. 

What is there to prevent such a power from 
becoming Imperious? For thirty years it has 
overcome every influence that could be brought 
to bear to compel it to respect the rights of the 
people. On the right, and on the left, and In 
the rear, are the dead bodies of Senators and 
Congressmen, the scattered fragments of Leg* 



AS A NATION. 99 

islatures and Courts, and the ashes of weaker 
foes, who have dared at any time to dispute its 
right to dictate the railroad policy of the nation. 
This modern giant has conquered the East, and] 
is now on a triumphal march, extending his do- 
minion over the unmeasured and unscarred 
fields of the West. It is not our purpose to 
analyze the legislation which has taken this vast 
sweep of territory from an honest and deserv/ 
ing people and lodged it in the hands oi a set 
of men, who, as a class, are dishonest, unprin- 
cipled, and who "recognize no principle of ac- 
tion, but their own aggrandizement.*' And 
certainly we do not charge every man with dis- 
honesty who has favored land grants to rail- 
roads, even in large quantities; but we do say 
that those shrewd capitalists, and such as have 
dishonestly aided them in taking so much of 
the people's property, for any purpose what- 
ever, and given them such a mighty power 
over the destiny of our Republic, have perpe- 
trated a horrid crime against humanity; and 
those who have honestly and thoughtlessly 
aided them have committed a blunder, which, 
without prompt and efficient action on the part 
of the people, may yet cost us our liberties. 

We would not harm or cripple the railroads, 
but we would control them within reasonable 



lOO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

limits. Their pov/er to lower the value of the 
people's property hundreds of millions of dollars 
with a single stroke of the pen, is dangerous 
and despotic. Their power to lay their strong 
hand on the Legislative and Judicial Depart- 
ments of the Government, and say to this peo- 
ple, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther,'* 
is frightful! We therefore, say, awake! and 
rescue the father's precious gift of freedom 
from the merciless clutch of corporate wealth 
ere the death damp appears upon the youthful 
brow of American liberty ! 

CIVILIZED BULLDOZING. 

One of the greatest dangers to our Institu- 
tions is that of interfering with voters in the 
free exercise of the elective franchise ; and one 
of the greatest sins of our modern politicians 
in both old parties, is that they mislead the 
people in regard to this matter. Each party 
seeks to stifle facts in locaHties where bulldoz- 
ing increases its votes. The Republicans 
charge it upon the Democrats, so far as bull- 
dozing in the South is concerned, but are silent 
about bulldozing in the North. Let us look 
into the matter, both North and South. We 
will begin by quoting the following, which I 
copy from a work entided, *' Great Speeches, 



AS A NATION. lOI 

Wit, Wisdom and Eloquence, of Col. R. G. 
Ingersoll: " 

"I believe the Union one, absolutely. The Democrat tells 
me that, when I am away from home, the government will 
protect me; but when I am at home, ^vhen I am sitting 
around the family fireside of the nation, then the govern- 
ment cannot protect me — that I must leave if I want pro- 
tection. Now, I denounce that doctrine. For instance: 
We are at war v/ith another country, and the American 
nation comes to me and says, ' Yie want you.' I say, ' I 
won't go.' They draft me — put some names in a wheel, 
and a man turns it, and another man pulls out a paper, and 
he says, ' Come!' I go, and I fight for the flag. When the 
war is over, I go back to my State. Now, let us admit 
that the war has been unpopular, and when I got to the 
State, that State wished to trample upon my rights, and I 

CRIED OUT TO MY GOVERNMENT, ' COME AND DEFEND ME — 

YOU MADE ME DEFEND YOU ! ' wkat ought the government to 

dof ^ >K A^ :^ ^i :^ :^ ^ 

*'I only owe that government allegiance that owes me 
protection. Protection is the other side of the bargain; 
that is what it must be ; and if a government ought to pro- 
tect even the man that it drafts, w^hat ought it to do for the 
volunteer — the man who holds his wife for a moment in a 
tremulous embrace and kisses his children, wets their cheeks 
with his tears, shoulders his musket, goes to the field, and 
says, 'Here I am to uphold the flag?' * -^ -^ 

^^ A nation that will not protect such a protector is a disgrace 
to mankind, and its flag a dirty rag that contaminates the air in 
^hich it waves. I believe in a government with an arm 
long enough to reach the collar of any rascal beneath its 
flag. I want it with an jirm long enough and a sword 
«harp enough to strike down tyranny wherever it may 
raise its snaky head. 



I02 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

** I want a government that can hear the faintest cries of 
its humblest citizen. I want a nation that will protect a 
freedman standing in the sun by his little cabin just as 
quick as it would protect Vanderbilt in a palace of marble 
and gold. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

"I believe in a government that can cross a State line on 
an errand of mercy. I believe in a government that can 
cross a State line when it wishes to do justice. I do not 
believe that a sword turns to air at a State line." 

"I want to see him a man feeling that he is a king by 
divine right of living in the Eepublic. And every man 
here is just a little bit a king, you know; every man here 
is a part of the sovereign power." 

''All who stand beneath our bann^ are free. Ours is 
the one flag that has in reality written upon it ' Liberty^ 
Fraternity, Equality ' — ^the three grandest v\^ords in all the 
languages of men. Liberty! Give to every man the 
fruit of his ov/n labor, the labor of his hand and of his 
brain. Fraternity ! Every man in the right is my brother. 
Equality! The rights of all are equal — no race, no color, 
no previous condition change the rights of men. The De- 
claration of Lidependence has at last been carried out in letter 
and spirit." 

I have quoted thus lengthily from Colonel 
Ingersoll in order to give the reader a fair 
sample of his political oratory. The political 
faith and sentiments professed and expressed 
in the extracts here quoted may be summed up 
as follows: 

J^zrsL He believes that the general Gov- 



AS A NATION. IO3 

ernment has the power to protect the rights of 
its humblest citizen in every inch of territory 
over which the grand old flag waves. 

Second, He believes that naturally we have 
equal rights, and that Government ought to 
protect every citizen in the enjoyment of those 
rights ; that under the law no privilege should 
be granted to Vanderbilt in his palace of mar- 
ble and gold that Is not vouchsafed to the hum- 
blest citizen in the remotest corner of the 
United States. 

Third, These rights are so sacred that if 
one class of citizens Interfere to deprive an- 
other class of the enjoyment and free exercise 
of these rights, it is the plain duty of the Gov- 
ernment to march an army, if need be, across 
State lines to prevent such interference. 

Fourth, That such protection is due to the 
citizens of a country on the ground that a man 
does not naturally owe allegiance to a govern- 
ment that will not protect him. If the govern- 
ment calls upon a citizen to protect it, and he is 
obliged to respond, then, when his rights are 
trampled upon, and he calls on the Government 
for help, the Government is bound by every 
principle of justice and fair play to protect him. 

In short, so opposed is Robert to wrong do- 
ing that he wants a Government with an arm 



I04 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

long enough to reach the collar of any rascal 
beneath its flag. So intense is his love of lib- 
erty that he wants a Government with an arm 
long enough and a sword sharp enough to 
strike down tyranny wherever it may raise its 
snaky head. So pitying is he, in his nature, 
that he wants a Government so parental in^ its 
character as to hear the faintest cries of its 
humblest citizen. 

A high type of manhood, that! Noble sen- 
timents, those! They stir the highest and ho- 
liest impulses of the human soul. They find 
an answering chord in the bosom of every true 
friend of liberty and right. They appeal to 
the purest morality and the loftiest patriotism. 
If they are the real sentiments of Colonel 
Ingersoll, they are a compliment to him. If 
they truly represent our condition as a nation, 
they are a glorious encomium on our beloved 
Government, and ought to exalt our people in 
the eyes of the world. But if they are delus- 
ive, and misrepresent our condition as a nation, 
then they have a dangerous meaning, and fur- 
nish another powerful reason for alarm for the 
safety of our Institutions. I will consider the 
subject further, by reference to a report made 
by a select committee of the United States 
Senate, of which Senator William A. Wallace, 



AS A NATION. IO5 

of Pennsylvania, was Chairman, and reported 
in April, 1880. May every son of toil read it. 
The Committee reported as follows : 

"Your select committee to inquire into alleged frauds in 
the recent elections, was directed, by the authority given it, 
to inquire whether citizens of any State had been dismissed, 
or threatened with dismissal, from employment, or any 
deprivation of any right or privilege by reason of his vote, 
or his intention to vote, at the recent elections, or has been 
otherwise interfered with, and whether citizens of the 
United States were prevented from exercising the elective 
franchise, or forced to use it against their wishes by * ^ 
^ any unlawful means or practices. The attention of the 
-committee w^as directed, by a number of affidavits upon 
this subject, to the State of Massachusetts, and the inquiry 
"was prosecuted there and in the State of Rhode Island, 
where your committee was also pursuing another branch of 
the duty assigned to it by the Senate." 

^ ^ :^ ;{< ij: ^ :^ ^ ^ 

** Your committee are of the opinion that, in very many 
instances during the late election, the ballot was cast by 
■operatives against their own deliberate convictions, and in 
favor of the candidates of their employers, and that this 
was the result of a fear of a loss of work at the beginning 
of winter. -^ * ' This action was described before your 
committee as a civilized bulldozing, and its occurrence was 
said to be much more frequent and effective in the manu- 
facturing villages than in the cities." 

"The case of the Manchaug Manufacturing Corporation 
in the county of Worcester was cited as one of those in 
-which the policy of civilized bulldozing was pursued. The 



I06 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

testimony disclosed the following facts : Manchaug is a 
manufacturing village wherein the real estate, mills, houses^ 
churches, halls and public buildings are owned by the stock 
company, which were^manufacturing linen fabrics. They 
employed a large number of persons as workmen. ^ * ^ 
The number of voters at the mill was upward of one hun- 
dred. * ^ ^ All of the managing force, superintend- 
ents and book-keepers, were Republicans. Many young 
people, of both sexes, were at the mills, and their homes 
were with their parents, in the tenement houses of the cor- 
poration. One case was shown in which a man, who had 
served during the war, occupied one of the company^s 
houses, whilst his son and three nieces worked in the fac- 
tory, and lived with him. He describes what occurred to 
him as follows : 

" * I was not working for the corporation, but I was act- 
ive in the campaign. I Avas one of the signers of the But- 
ler call, and one of the vice presidents of the Butler Club. 
I contributed two or three dollars to the Butler flag rais- 
ing, when we were a-going to have a good time. Mr. Waters, 
who had asked for the hall, came to my house when I was 
not at home. My wife told me of his being there. Im- 
mediately after this a notice came from the mill that I 
must vacate my tenement within two weeks. It was signed 
by Robert McArthur and Charles A. Chase, clerk. For 
two or three days nothing was said, and they sent for me 
to come to the shop.' The son was notified to quit work, 
and did quit. The effect of this notice to leave, upon men 
who had families dependent upon them, was to take away 
their freedom of action, and they were obliged to vote as 
their employers required, for they had no place to go with 
their families." 



AS A NATION. lOJ 

Hear the committee further : 

"The ballot-boxes were open boxes, and those in charge 
could see the form and appearance of the ballot voted, and 
they were easily distinguishable apart. The result of this 
close supervision of the vote of the operatives by their em- 
ployers, and the fears which prevailed among them, lest 
they should be discharged, very materially affected the re- 
sult in the districts in which they voted, and gave to the 
candidates favored by the employer a large number of 
votes they v/ould not have received if perfect freedom of 
action had been allowed to the workman. 

"Your committee examined a number of witnesses in 
regard to the arrangement and manner of voting in Web- 
ster, Worcester county, by the employes of the Slater Man- 
ufacturing Compauy, where several hundred men are em- 
ployed. * * * The proof showed about the same state 
of facts as existed at Manchaug. The same was the case 
at the Douglas Axe Factory." 

The foregoing is a part of the report of that 
committee. Observe the mild language in 
which those awful facts are stated. Yet, who 
can read it without a feeling of horror? Who 
that has love for his kind can contemplate it 
with tearless eyes? 

The capitalists did not stop at discharging 
voters who w^ere in their employ. They went 
beyond and discharged boys who were not 
voters, because their fathers were active in the 
campaign against their candidates; and turned 
women and children into the streets, because 



108 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the head of the family had contributed money 
for a Butler flag. The testimony shows that 
one victim of their revenge was not in their 
employ, even ; he only lived in a house belong- 
ing to the company: he exercised the right of 
an American citizen, and a homeless family was 
the penalty he paid. Blaine, Conkling, Logan, 
Ingersoll & Co.^ — where are they? May their 
tongues blister, if they ever utter another word 
about bulldozing in the South, until they have 
made some effort to stop it in the North. The 
press — where is it? It is howling about out- 
rages in the South, to blind the people to 
what is taking place in other parts of the coun- 
try. The treatment which those mechanics re- 
ceived, at the hands of their employers, was 
worsq than disfranchisement : for they were not 
only prevented from voting for the candidate 
of their choice, but were compelled to vote for 
the candidate opposed to them. So, should 
the less dependent people, who are not em- 
ployed as laborers, come to their rescue with 
their votes, the laborer is forced to vote against 
them. He is not only powerless to help extri- 
cate himself from his deplorable situation, but 
whatever power there is in his ballot, is added 
to that of the capitalist. He is a tool in the 
hands of the oppressor. In other words, he is 



AS A NATION. IO9 

compelled to apply the lighted torch to the 
funeral pile of his own liberties. 

THE CONDITION OF THE LABORERS IN RHODE 
ISLAND. 

That same committee investigated Rhode 
Island, and found the following law upon the 
statute book of that State: 

'' Section 1. The two following classes of persons have, 
by the constitution — the first, as registered, and second, as 
unregistered, voters — a right to vote in the election of all 
civil officers, and on all questions, in all legally organized 
town, ward or district meetings: 

"First. Every native male citizen of the United States 
of the age of twenty-one years, and who has had his resi- 
dence and home in this State two years. * * Whose 
name shall be registered in the office of the clerk of the 
town where he resides, on or before the last day of Decem- 
ber next preceding the time of his voting, and who shall 
show, by legal proof, that he has for, and within the year 
next preceding the time he shall offer to vote, paid a tax or 
taxes assessed against him in any town or city in that State 
to the amount of one dollar, including in such tax or taxes 
a tax upon his property in the town in which he shall offer 
to vote, valued at least at one hundred and thirty-four dol- 
lars. 

"Second. Every male citizen of the United States of 
the age of twenty-one years, who has had his home and 
residence in this State for one year, * * and who is 
really and truly possessed, in his own right, of real estate 
in such town or city of the value of one hundred dollars 
over and above all incumbrances, or which shall rent for 



no WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

seven dollars per annum over and above any rent reserved, 
or the interest on any incumbrance thereon, being an estate 
in fee simple, fee tail for the life of any person, or an estate 
in reversion or remainder, which qualifies no other person 
to vote, the conveyance of which estate, if by deed, shall 
have been recorded at least ninety days." 

It will be seen, by the law here quoted, that, 
in the State of Rhode Island, a man must own 
at least one hundred and thirty four dollars 
worth of real estate to entitle him to vote. 

Some idea of the beneficent effects of that 
law may be gathered from the testimony taken 
by the committee last mentioned. The com- 
mittee, referring to Col. James Moran, of Pro- 
vidence, reported his testimony as follows : 

"Lived here twenty-eight years. ^ ^ Entered 
service of United States from Rhode Island. ^ ^ Com- 
missioned as second lieutenant; promoted to captaincy; 
honorably discharged ; held an election for officials in Rhode 
Island in his company in the army, but could not vote him- 
self; was a voter once, because he owned real estate; has 
lost it, and cannot vote now." 

HON. THOMAS DAVIs' CASE. 

Take another case reported, that of Hon. 
Thomas Davis, formerly a member of Congress 
from Rhode Island: 

"Live in Providence; * * seventy-five years old ; 
a manufacturing jeweler; been in both branches of the 
Legislature a number of times ; member of Congress from 



AS A NATION. Ill 

Hhode Island in 1853-4; then owned real estate; I am not 
now a qualified voter ; I failed in business, and the title to 
my property passed to my assignees, and I cannot now 
vote ; wealth controls suffrage in Rhode Island ; money is 
all-powerful here — it can overwhelm public sentiment at 
any time here ; have been both a Republican and Demo- 
crat, but have always advocated the repeal of the restric- 
tion." 

DANIEL Donovan's case. 

The committee report Daniel Donovan's tes- 
timony as follows : 

"Came from Connecticut; lived in United Staltes since 
iive years old ; am a skilled mechanic ; ten of us work to- 
gether in one room in our factory; the highest grade room 
in it ; six of the ten * * cannot vote for the want of 
land." 

Now, look upon this picture! Ten skilled 
mechanics ! They occupy, the highest grade 
room in the factory, which proves that, accord- 
ing to the judgment of their employers, they 
are among their most skillful worf men. Yet 
six of them can not vote, because they do not 
own land. The mechanics of Rhode Island 
have woven some of the finest fabrics that 
beautify the ladies' toilet; they clothe her mil- 
lionaires in fine raiment; they have decked her 
hills with palaces, in which their masters walk 
on velvet carpets, and sleep on beds of down ; 



112 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

they have cleft granite from her quarries; filled 
her valleys with factories, and made them vocal 
with the hum of industry ; they have pierced her 
hills and sent the engine whizzing through her 
mountains and across her fields; they have 
built her temples of worship and her ships that 
sail the sea, yea, and spun the cable that spans 
old ocean. Yet, unless they happen to own 
land they can not vote ; they have created her 
wealth and built up her material prosperity, 
but must leave it to others to control her po- 
litical destiny. 

What a commentary on our Republican Gov- 
ernment! The testimony taken by that com- 
"mlttee shows that a house, comfortable for a 
small family, cost two thousand dollars, and 
upward. 

Under the present regime, not one working- 
man In a thousand can secure a home by his 
own labor. What an outlook for the toiler and 
his children! 

Laboring, suffering men of America! I en- 
treat you to study your condition. If you begin 
now, it can be remedied by concert of action 
and intelligent voting. If you delay much 
longer, the terrible consequences feared by Mr. 
Lincoln will be upon you : the door of advance- 
ment, now only slightly ajar, will be entirely 



i 



AS A NATION. II3 

closed, no ray of light will beam upon your 
future pathway, and your children will become 
homeless wanderers upon the earth. 

The Hon. Thomas Davis, seventy-five years 
of age, once a member of Congress— like Gen- 
eral Grant and many others, has been both a 
Democrat and a Republican—lost his property, 
and with it his right to vote. Americans ! think 
as you never thought before. No voice was 
more potent in the convention that framed our 
Constitution than that of Benjamin Franklin. 
Yet, had he been a citizen of Rhode Island 
at the age of twenty one years, he could not 
have cast his vote, with the present law upon 
her statute books. 

Webster, Clay, Lincoln and Greeley were 
not only philanthropistSj they were giants in the 
political world. Their great and noble deeds 
will sparkle like diamonds on the brightest 
pages of American history, whrn oblivion shall 
have set her everlasting seal upon the last name 
of the Rhode Island Shylocks who refuse to al- 
low their brother man equal rights at the ballot 
box. Yet, neither of these great and noble 
patriots were owners of real estate in their 
earlier manhood ; and had they then been citi- 
zens of Rhode Island, could not have cast their 
vote. And, the writer is credibly informed, 
8— D. 



114 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that the incumbrance on Daniel Webster's 
farm, at the time of his death, was more than 
it was worth; if true, he would not have been 
a legal voter in Rhode Island, had he been so 
unfortunate as to have been a citizen of that 
State. And had he been reared on her soil, 
the name of Daniel Webster, which America 
now wears so proudly upon her brow, could 
scarcely have been knov/n beyond the limits of 
the town that gave him birth. For, when a 
man can not vote, he feels his degradation, his 
inspiration is gone, his manhood is crushed. 

Could the hearts and minds of the twenty 
thousand disfranchised American citizens within 
the State of Rhode Island be laid bare to the 
gaze of the world, the humiliation, the discour- 
aging thoughts, the chagrin, the heartaches, 
would furnish a picture sad to contemplate. 

In this connection we will recur briefly to 
another case cited by that committee — that of 
Col. James Moran. He entered the service 
from Rhode Island ; was promoted to a second- 
lieutenancy ; to a captaincy, and so on. While 
he was in the arrny Rhode Island soldiers who 
were real estate owners voted for State officers. 
Col. Moran owned no real estate and could not 
vote. He could and did lead his battalion 
against the foes of the Union, on sanguinary 



AS A NATION. II5 

fields. He helped to cover that ancient com- 
monwealth with immortal glory, returned with 
laurels won in bloody battle strife, but could 
not cast his vote in the State he had honored,, 
and defended. Should foreign foes combine to 
destroy the property of the rich idlers in Rhode 
Island, Col. Moran and her other disfranchised 
citizens are the very men who would be obliged 
to defend it at the risk of their lives ; but should 
the capitalists combine to sell the children of 
these non-voting citizens to the highest bidder, 
the wretched fathers could not vote against it, 
because they do not own real estate, free of all 
incumbrances, to the amount of one hundred 
and thirty-four dollars. Great heavens ! think 
of it ; a man obliged to fight for the rich, but 
can not vote to save his own children from 
slavery! But are they worse off than those 
who have a vote but are forced to cast it ac- 
cording to the wishes of their lords and mas- 
ters, and thus help to fasten the shackles upon 
their own limbs? 

Now, while we do not pretend that the capi- 
talists contemplate, or could succeed in inaug- 
urating such a system as would sell children 
into slavery, yet, we do contend, that they have 
managed to reduce hundreds of thousands of 
the most useful citizens in America to a condi- 



Il6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tion where they can control them just as effec- 
tually. The report of that select committee 
has proven, beyond all question, that, in those 
manufacturing districts, the result of an election 
has been and can be, changed by the employ- 
ers intimidating their employes. And in our 
judgment, in a closely contested election, the 
result can be changed, in the same manner, in 
at least eight States : Massachusetts, New 
Hamxpshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. 

THE COMMITTEE DECLINE TO RECOMMEND LEGIS- 
LATION FOR THE RELIEF OF THE 
OPPRESSED. 

Hear the committee further : 

"Your committee was instructed to inquire and report 
■whether it is within the competency of Congress to provide 
by additional legislation for the more perfect right of suf- 
frage to citizens of the United States in all the States of 
the Union. They have performed that duty, and whilst 
they find that improper practices, as herein before detailed, 
exist in the States visited and the freedom of choice by 
voters in those States has been interfered with, and persons 
practically threatened with dismissal from employment if 
they voted in opposition to the wishes of their employers, 
yet they cannot find that it is within the competency of 
Congress to correct this wrong by additional or any legisla- 
tion, but that, on the contrary, the remedy therefor is to be 
found with the law-making power of the State in which the 



AS A NATION. llj 

wroDg is perpetrated. Wrongs upon the ballot or interfer- 
ence with the right of suffrage, or with the modes of the 
qualifications of voters are questions which are to be cor- 
rected and controlled by the States, and not by Federal 
Government. Suffrage is under the control of the States 
and not of the Federal Government. The latter has no 
voters of its own creation, it cannot qualify voters, nor can 
it protect voters from wrong by inflicting punishment upon 
those who compel them to improperly exercise the right of 
suffrage; it may punish for crimes committed in regard to 
the manner of voting, but an offense against the right itself 
must be punished under State law, and not by Federal 
statute. The civilized bulldozing which we find to have 
existed in the ancient and honored Commonwealth of Mas- 
sachusetts and Khode Island is an evil which the people of 
those States must themselves correct, and your committee 
feel that in bringing the facts to the public gaze they will 
help to strengthen a sentiment already in existence, and aid 
in crystalizing into such statutory enactments of those 
States as will correct the evil or punish its repetition." 

Can the laborers, employed by the corpora- 
tions throughout the United States, read the 
above report and not feel the deepening shades 
of despotism settling down upon them ? It mat- 
ters not whether a majority of that committee 
were Democrats or Republicans. Both parties 
are equally culpable, for neither have made any 
effort to correct the evil ; but, by their silence, 
have acquiesced in the decision that it is a mat- 
ter not within the jurisdiction of the Federal 
Government ; and that, if there is a remedy, it 



Il8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

is with the State where the wrongs are com- 
mitted. And who knows better than that com- 
mittee, and the United States Congress, that 
every attempt to repeal the law, restricting the 
right of suffrage in Rhode Island, has been 
defeated at the polls In that State. As Thomas 
Davis said, capital can overwhelm public senti- 
ment there. 

In other days, I looked upon Robert Inger- 
soll as a much better man than most of the 
politicians who have led his party since it turned 
its back on those who gave It being, and who 
finally closed their eyes regretfully on Its wan- 
ing virtues. I believed him to have a higher 
purpose than the men who now control the 
Republican organization. I thought of him as 
having a larger heart, a kindlier nature, a 
whiter soul, yea. a more truthful tongue, than 
they. But could he have been sincere when he 
declared that the Republican party was carry- 
ing out the Declaration of Independence, that 
it had placed every American citizen on an 
equal footing before the law, and that every 
man here is a part of the sovereign power oi 
the Government? He must have known that 
his statement was not true. Who knows bet- 
ter than Robert Ingersoll, that from fifteen to 
thirty thousand of the most useful, most indus- 



AS A NATION. II9 

trious and most deserving citizens of Rhode 
Island are prohibited, by law, from voting? 
Are they a part of the sovereign power of the 
United States ? They Hve under our Govern- 
ment, and fight for our flag. Yet they are not 
allowed to vote, and, consequently, are no 
more a part of the sovereign power of this 
Government, in the sense in which Mr, Inger- 
soll uses the term, than they would be if they 
inhabited the Cannibal Isles of the South Sea. 
Can he be sincere, when he says, in sub- 
stance, that the Republican party recognizes 
the rights of rich and poor alike? He says 
this in the face of the fact, that Senator An- 
thony, of Rhode Island, is a voter, because he 
is able to own real estate, while Colonel Moran, 
of the same State, is not a voter because he is 
not able to own real estate. Are those men 
on an equal footing before the law? And who 
knows better than Colonel Ingersoll that every 
attempt to repeal the restrictive clause has 
been defeated by the bulldozing and intrigues 
of the Republican leadership in that State? 
Did Colonel Ingersoll mean it, when he said, 
" The government that will ask a man to de- 
fend it, and then will not defend him, is a dis- 
grace to the world, its flag a dirty rag," etc? 
Was he sincere in attributing that sentiment to 
the Republican party ? 



I20 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Well he knows that the Government took 
thousands of Rhode Island's best citizens from 
loving- families, and "set them down by the 
ruddy, roaring guns," and that when they re- 
turned to their ovv'n State, v/ar-worn and battle- 
scarred, were not allowed to cast their vote un- 
less they ovv^ned real estate to the amount of 
one hundred and thirty four dollars. It is the 
rich leadership of both old parties that thus 
outrages modern civilization in Rhode Island. 

It is a sad thought. Most of those men in 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island are sensitive 
as to their rights; they have seen better days; 
at some period in their lives they have enjoyed 
freedom, and tasted the sweets of liberty; they 
are men born of noble mothers ; they can boast 
of a patriotic ancestry; many of them kept 
step to the music of the Union on gory fields, 
and rejoiced when the chains fell from the limbs 
of the colored slave. Now, they are reduced 
to this choice— vote as their master dictates, or 
see their families starve or beg. The husband 
looks at his wife, the partner of his toil; her 
health is poor; she feels their degradation ; her 
look is wan and discouraged ; in her arm nestles 
an infant, whose coming was received as a kiss 
from heaven. The house they occupy is owned 
by the corporation; if the husband votes as 



AS A NATION. 121 

his conscience dictates, his family will be turned 
into the street. '*My God!" says he, **my 
fragile wife can not stand fatigue nor worry, 
and to see her without food or shelter would 
crush my soul to the earth; and here is my 
tender cherub — it can not endure hunger, nor 
the cold winds of winter. There is but one 
thing for me to do, that is, vote as my master 
dictates." And they did it by the ten thousand. 

Now, did Robert Ingersoll speak from his 
heart when he declared that he wanted a gov- 
ernment that could hear the faintest cries of 
its humblest citizen ? Those abused citizens of 
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, who were 
guilty of no crime but that of poverty, cried 
out for help. And was the cry so faint that 
Mr. Ingersoll and his party could not have 
heard it, had their sense of hearing been as 
acute as he would have us believe? No! 
Those poor men sent up a wail of anguish loud 
and prolonged. It was the united voice of an 
outraged people, thundering through the land 
and reverberating from city wall and mountain 
side. 

Did Mr. Ingersoll mean it when he said he 
wanted a government with an arm long enough 
to reach the collar of any rascal beneath the 
flag? Is a man who turns defenseless women 



122 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and children Into the streets, because the head 
of the family exercises the dearest and most 
sacred right of an American citizen, a rascal? 
The capitalists of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island are proven to have done that and more, 
and, in my judgment, the term rascal is not 
strong enough ; they are assassins ; for they 
have assassinated free institutions, They are 
despots ; for they have trampled on the 
dearest right of their fellow man, and disre- 
garded the most sacred attributes of citizen- 
ship. They have set at naught the Constitu- 
tion of their country, and have overthrown 
Republican government in the very womb of 
its origin, and beneath the shadow of Bunker 
Hill Monument, whose enduring shaft marks 
the spot where American liberty struggled into 
life. 

Now, why does not Mr. Ingersoll call on his 
Government to stretch forth its mighty arm, 
and collar those enemies of their race — those 
cruel tyrants who never fought for the flag — 
and compel them to take their heel from the 
necks of those citizens of Massachusetts and 
Rhode Island, many of whom are sufferers 
from diseases contracted in the service of theiV 
country? Why does he not ask his Republican 
party to bring down its ponderous fist on that 



AS A NATION. 1 23 

^* snaky -headed tyrant'' which is striking his 
poisonous fangs deep into the very heart of 
New England ? Why, sirs, the Republican party 
lives, breathes and has its being through the 
influence of that conscienceless money power. 
Its love for the people died with Lincoln and 
the rest of its noble founders. 

THE LOUISIANA COUNT. 

The tyranny of political leaders was never 
better exemplified than in the celebrated Louisi- 
ana count. Intrigue and the changing scenery 
of American politics have produced some horrid 
pictures of the inconsistencies, treachery and 
even cruelty of party leaders in exciting political 
campaigns, but none half so painful and disheart- 
ening as that of the Louisiana count. Our Hber- 
ties have been threatened — -tyranny has often 
raised its ''snaky head'' here and there — but 
never in such a defiant manner as in Louisiana 
in 1876. Right there that snaky-headed tyrant, 
under the guise of equal rights, dealt Republican 
liberty a staggering blow. It was an epoch in 
American history. 

After returns made by Republican officers 
of election had given the State to Tilden, the 
Government bulldozed the Democrats of Lou- 
isiana and gave it to Hayes, then turned on 



124 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the Republicans of Louisiana, bulldozed them, 
and kicked their Governor out. The same 
votes that made Hayes President of the United 
States made Kellogg governor of Louisiana. 
If it was an act of justice to give the Republi- 
cans the president, it v^^as an act of despotism 
to refuse to give them their Governor who had 
been elected by the same voters. Yet the 
Republican leaders did it with all the grace 
imaginable. 

Now. search history for a parallel, even in 
despotic governments. Well, what followed? 
Why, the Republicans of Louisiana felt that 
they had been outraged, and that their dearest 
rights had been trampled upon. They said to 
the Government, ** Here, you say, we have 
carried the State of Louisiana. Then how is 
it that we are to be ruled by a Democratic 
governor? Are we not loyal, every one of us? 
Have we not fought for the flag in days that 
* tried men's souls?' Did we not suffer perse- 
cution enough at the hands of our enemies dur- 
ing the war ? Now, after we have upheld the 
Government, when it was all our lives were 
worth to do it, will it not protect us ? Will it 
not guarantee to us our constitutional right to a 
Republican form of government? What have 
we done that we must be handed over to the 



AS A NATION. 1 25 

tender mercies of the very men you call rebels, 
and have one of their Generals to rule over 
us as Governor in place of him whom we have 
elected ? " Such were the just complaints of 
the Republicans in Louisiana. On the other 
hand, the Democrats of the whole country felt 
outraged. 

THE SUPREME COURT DECIDES THAT THE GOVERN- 

MENT CAN NOT CROSS STATE LINES TO 

PROTECT VOTERS. 

A proposition was made to refer the whole 
matter to an electoral commission, of which the 
Judges of the Supreme Court formed a part. 
The people of all parties believed that the 
Electoral Commission would go behind the re- 
turns of the State, as the State had gone behind 
the returns of the election precincts, and review 
the whole proceedings of the Returning Boards, 
and decide who had been elected. Yet, un- 
doubtedly, the wise ones among the leading 
Democrats knew to the contrary, as did the 
Republicans. A recount might make Tilden 
president, and the rich Democrats no more 
wanted him than the Republicans. But, be that 
as it may, the matter was taken under advise- 
ment by that august tribunal, and every Re- 
publican Judge on th/^ bench decided that the 



126 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Federal Government had no power to go be- 
hind returns made by a State Board, and they, 
being in the majority, settled the question. 

Mr. Ingersoll declared in substance that the 
Government, under Republican rule, will cross 
State lines to protect its humblest citizen. 

How ridiculous that statement appears in the 
light of that decision, made by the highest tri- 
bunal known to our laws. 

Now, upon the supposition that Hayes was 
fairly elected, more than seventy-five thousand 
Republican voters in the State of Louisiana 
were disfranchised, and robbed of their birth- 
right, by being refused their governor ; for the 
right to vote, and have that vote fairly counted, 
is a birthright in a Republic. Upon the sup- 
position that the first returns of the Republi- 
can officers were right, and Tilden had a 
majority, then every Democratic voter in the 
United States was disfranchised. Nov/, let the 
reader pause and carefully consider the mean- 
ing of that procedure. What kingly power 
was ever wielded against its own friends in a 
more infamous and despotic manner? Does 
-not the conduct of the Republican leaders, in 
the Louisiana election case, prove that this Gov- 
ernment is in the hands of a set of despots, who 
respect no party or condition, will do anything, 



AS A NATION. \2^ 

trample on anything, when their own base pur- 
poses can be subserved by it? And did the 
Democratic leaders do better? Did they not 
acquiesce and receive offices under Hayes by 
the score? 

It is a crime against humanity for Robert 
Ingersoll to mislead a confiding people, as he 
is doing. We have the evidence of a Senate 
committee and the Republican Judges of the 
Supreme Court to prove that, when it is asserted 
that the Federal Government, under the man- 
agement of Republican leaders, will march an 
army across State lines, to protect the rights 
of the humblest American citizen, that the 
statement is not only false as regards a single 
citizen, but it is false as regards the citizens of 
a State, or a number of States. The records, 
in their own hand-writing, prove that Republi- 
can government was effectually overthrown in 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Louisiana. 
And when the loyal defenders of the flag, in 
those States, begged of the Government for 
protection, the Republican ''sword turned to air 
at a State line!' 

LINCOLN ON CAPITAL AND LABOR. 

I will here introduce the following from Pres- 
ident Lincoln*s message, 1861 : 

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital 



128 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

is only tlie fruit of labor, and never could have existed if 
labor had not first existed. Labor is much the superior, 
and deserves much the higher consideration." 

Here, it will be observed, that the heart of 
the great patriot beats in sympathy with the 
people. He truly and philosophically regards 
capital as only the fruit of labor, and, conse- 
quently, deserving only a secondary considera- 
tion. 

While those noble and statesmanlike senti- 
ments are fresh in the memory, read Senator 
Sharon, in his own paper, the Nevada Chron- 
icle, (For the article entire see Heath's Labor 
and Finance Revolution, page 259.) I extract 
the following: 

"We need a stronger government; the wealth of the 
country demands it. Without capital and the capitalists, 
our Government would not be worth a fig. The wealth of 
the country has to bear the burdens of the Government, 
and shall control it. * ^ There shall be blood, and 
rivers of it, before the Administration shall change." 

It will here be observed that Senator Sharoa 
not only regards capital as deserving much the 
higher consideration, but he regards it the 
rightful ruler of the nation, and delares that it 
shall rule, though it cost rivers of blood. 



AS A NATION. 1 29 

THE RICHMOND (VA.) STATE AND BOSTON HERALD 
INDORSE BULLDOZING. 

In perfect line with Senator Sharon is the 
following from the Richmond (Va.) State: 

"There are defects in our institutions, which can only be 
remedied by irregular means, and the most defective por- 
tion of the machinery of our Government is the elective. 
The best must govern in every State, and will, regardless 
of any attempt to deprive them of that right." 

** Well," say you, "that is from that leading 
Southern journal. Of course, those Southern 
aristocrats hold that the richest are the best, 
and ought to govern." 

Well, we will now hear from Massachusetts, 
the State where Daniel Webster said American 
liberty raised her first voice. 

The Boston Herald is a leading and influen- 
tial journal in the East, and the select commit- 
tee of the Senate, in their report, before quoted, 
reported that paper as having declared its sen- 
timents, in 187S, in the following language: 

"They (the capitalists) know that idle hands are waiting 
to do their work. It is not to be expected that they will 
look on indifferently and see their employes vote for a de- 
structive like Butler. Human nature is much the same in 
Massachusetts and Mississippi, only methods are different. 
Brain, capital and enterprise will tell in any community. 
It is very improper, of course, to intimidate voters. But 
there is a way of giving advice that is quite convincing." 

9— D. 



130 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

If there is any difference in the sentiments of 
the two papers above quoted, I fail to see it. 
One represents the wealthy class in the South, 
and the other in the East, and they both sup- 
port the wealth-controlling theory, and, beyond 
a doubt, reflect the sentiment dominant in the 
aristocratic circles in their respective localities. 

What is to be the final destiny of those who 
most need protection from the attacks of ava- 
rice and power? The election takes place in 
November, when business is dull and laborers 
plenty. Already the chilling blast is moaning 
in the eastern forests, and sweeping across the 
bleak prairies of the west. Winter — cold, stern 
and pitiless — is closing in on the needy poor, 
who dare not offend those who can close the 
door to their storehouse of provisions, and 
thereby add the cruel torture of hunger, to the 
pinching cold of winter. 

Laborers, those utterances of the Boston 
Herald, Virginia State News, Senator Sharon, 
etc., are threatenings of the money power. 
They may be angels of mercy putting you on 
your guard, or they may be trumpet-tongued 
messengers of despotism. It depends alto- 
gether upon how you receive and consider 
them. Remember, they emanate from the 
highest sources of intelligence, and speak in no 



AS A NATION. I3I 

uncertain tone. They come from a power 
already defiant and fearfully strong. Behind 
those threatenings is a spirit that forebodes evil 
to our laboring people, and marks the presentj 
hour as one of peril to this Republic. May 
you study the situation with the philosophy of 
statesmen, and meet the emergency with the 
zeal and promptitude of patriots. 

MORE ON THE FATAL DRIFT OF LEGISLATION. 

I think of no more fitting introduction to a 
discussion of the monarchial tendency of our 
legislation, than the part which foreign capital- 
ists took in the demonetization of silver in the 
United States in 1872. 

In the Congressional Record of April 9, 1872, 
page 2,032, appear these words from Mr. 
Hooper, of Massachusetts, Chairman of the 
Committee on Coinage: 

*'ErDest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer and 
bullionist, who is now here, has given great attention to 
the subject of mint and coinage. After having examined 
the first draft of this bill [meaning the bill by which silver 
was demonetized], he made various sensible suggestions, 
which the committee adopted and embodied in the bill." 

I will here state that the Hon. Gilbert De La- 
Matyr, of Indiana, in a speech delivered at 
Bismark Grove, Kansas, in August, 1881, said 



132 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that Judge Kelley, of Pennsylvania, stated to 
him that he (Judge Kelley) saw the first draft 
of the bill by which silver was demonetized, in 
the handwriting of Ernest Seyd, of London; 
so, according to Judge Kelley, who is one of 
the most prominent Republicans in the United 
States, Mr. Seyd did more than to make what 
Mr. Hooper called sensible suggestions — he 
drew the bill itself I 

BRITISH STATESMANSHIP. 

Ernest Seyd is a representative British states- 
man, and the condition of Ireland and India 
are striking illustrations of the wisdom and 
'beneficence of that kind of statesmanship. la 
the fifth volume of the Nineteenth Century, a 
work published in London, I noticed in an ar- 
ticle on the condition of India, that, according 
to a report of a committee appointed by the 
British Parliament ( for a more extended notice 
of that report see Progress and Poverty, by 
Henry George ) , in some parts of India wages 
for field hands were one and one-half pefice per 
day, I noticed, also, that the price of salt was 
one and one-half pence per pound. Thus, the 
poor field hand would be compelled to toil all 
day for a pound of salt. Listen ! I further no- 
ticed that nine-tenths of the cost of that salt 



AS A NATION. 1 33 

was tax, levied by the beneficent statesmanship 
of Great Britain. Listen again: In 1878, v/hen 
famine had spread her dark wings over unhappy 
India — when men, women and children were 
dying of starvation, and did die in numbers 
variously estimated from one to seven millions 
(and history shows that, while there was such 
intense suffering among the people, cattle sick- 
ened and died for the want of salt) — in that 
year Great Britain took from starving India 
over thirty-five millions of dollars in tax on the 
one article of salt ! 

This money Great Britain uses largely to 
support an army of aristocrats in idleness, and 
an army of soldiers to hold India and Ireland 
down while she robs them, and to pay interest 
on the untaxed bonds of Ernest Seyd and his 
fellow bondholders; for British statesmanship 
has loaded the English people with a bonded 
debt. This is the statesmanship which, accord- 
ing to our own Congressional Record, revises 
and superintends legislation in free America. 

You are mistaken if you think you threw off 
the British yoke entirely, at the close of the 
Revolution. On the contrary, you retained one 
of its -most oppressive features — their monetary 
system, which, cruel as the grave and relentless 
as the winter's wind, halts at the boundary line 



134 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of no country where it is possible to cross — 
respects no people — pities no condition. The 
grasping giant reached across the sea, demon- 
etized silver, and helped to destroy our pros- 
perity in 1873. Grant, Secretary Sherman, 
and, in fact, almost our entire Congress fell at 
his touch. 

Froni statements made by Chambers* Ency- 
clopaedia, and other high authorities, there is 
every reason to believe that large sums of 
money were used by Ernest Seyd and other 
European capitalists, to secure the demonetiza- 
tion of silver in the United States. This will 
not appear strange when the fact is taken into 
consideration, that every dollar taken from the 
volume of money in circulation, adds to the 
value of that which is left ; hence, to demone- 
tize silver was to increase the value of gold* 
Ernest Seyd represented a class of European 
capitalists who were heavily interested in 
American bonds, which under existing laws we 
have the right to pay, principal and interest, in 
silver. In England our standard silver dollar, 
containing 41 2 J^ grains of silver, is not worth 
as much by at least ten cents on the dollar as 
our gold dollar, contaning 25.8 grains of 
gold. Hence, by destroying the money quality - 
of silver, bonds became payable in gold only, 



AS A NATION. 1 35 

thus adding immensely to their value. William 
Vanderbilt, of New York, is said to have sixty 
million dollars invested in bonds. Let us sup- 
pose Ernest Seyd, of London, to have the 
same amount. At four per cent., his annual 
interest, paid in gold, would amount to ^2,400,- 
000; paid in standard silver dollars, it would 
be worth in London only ^2,160,000, or ten 
per cent. less. Hence, the difference to Mr. 
Seyd would be ^240,000 per annum, or $657 
per day in his interest income. I trust you 
now see clearly why Mr, Seyd wanted silver 
demonetized in the United States. It v/ould 
add 1^6,000,000 to the value of his bonds, and 
$657 to his daily income. 

HIGH BONDS. 

When the people come to understand just 
what high-priced bonds mean, they will not 
rejoice that four per cent, bonds are selling at 
a premium of fifteen per cent.; for high bonds 
mean low property. High-priced bonds are 
not indicative of a prosperous condition of the 
people. To say that money seeks investment 
in four per cent, bonds, is to say that business 
does not offer a better inducement, else money 
would go there. When business is good, 
money seeks investment in business enter- 



136 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

prises, and property becomes high and bonds 
are low. On the other hand, when business is 
not profitable, money leaves the channels of 
trade and seeks investment in bonds; then 
bonds become high and other property low. 

Legislation that increases the value of bonds 
increases the people's burdens. The more 
valuable our bonds become, the more labor 
will be required to pay them. The rise of our 
bonds in Europe means that more of the pro- 
ducts of our labor must go into the hands of 
the European capitalists, and, of course, the 
same principle holds good in reference to our 
bonds at home. To legislate so as to increase 
their value one million dollars, is to legislate 
one million of the people's earnings into the 
bondholders' pockets. It is to give bonds the 
preference. It is to place capital above labor 
in the structure of the government, and cen- 
tralize the wealth of the nation into the hands 
of the few. That was the purpose of the act de- 
monetizing silver. It was that kind of legisla- 
tion which Webster declared would destroy the 
liberties of any people. It was that which Mr. 
Lincoln warned you would add to your burdens 
till all of liberty would be lost. Such has ever 
been the financial policy of the government 
which Ernest Seyd represents ; such the policy 



AS A NATION. 137 

fastened upon this country by a heartless mon- 
ey power. 

GEN. GRANT ON SILVER. 

At this point Gen. Grant's views on the sil- 
ver question become useful for the purpose of 
this discussion. They may be gathered from 
an extract which I take from his letter to his 
friend Cowdry, a New York banker, bearing 
date October 6, 1873, and published in the 
Chicago Tribune M^rch 30, 1878. It is as 
follows : 

** Our mines are now producing almost unlimited amounts 
of silver, and it is becoming a question, what shall we do 
with it? I suggest here a solution that will answer for 
some years, and suggest to you bankers whether you may 
not imitate it — to put it in circulation now. Keep it there 
until it is fixed, and then we will find other markets. The 
South and Central American countries have asked us to 
coin their silver for them. There never has been author- 
ity of law to do so. I trust it will now be given. * * 
We become the manufacturers of this currency with a 
profit, and shall probably secure a portion of our pay in the 
more precious metals." 

I wish to impress the thought upon your 
minds that on the 6th of October, 1873; Gen. 
Grant was not only in favor of the unlimited 
coinage of our own silver, but he was in favor 
of coining for South America and taking our 



138 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

pay In the more precious metals. ''Piit it in 
circulation^' says Grant, ''a7td keep it there!'' 

grant's letter to judge long. 

Now mark : — When the bill which was to 
put silver Into circulation was pending before 
Congress, Gen. Grant was no longer President, 
but was in Europe, and wrote a letter to 
Judge Long, of St Louis, which was published 
by several newspapers, and quoted by Gen. 
Weaver in a speech in Congress. In that let- 
ter he spoke of silver, and what did he say— 
'\Ptit it in circulation and keep it there? " Oh, 
no! that was what he advised before he had 
been sent around the world by the money pow- 
er. Here Is his language to Judge Long: 

. ''If I were where I was one year ago, and the seven 
years previous [meaning in the Presidential chair], I would 
put my unqualified veto upon that bill." 

What has happened to you, General Grant? 
Only a few months since you were for putting 
silver into circulation and keeping It there. 
Now, you say you would veto the only means 
by which it can possibly be gotten into circula- 
tion. Does not Gen. Grant remember saying, 
during his first term, "that he felt he had no 
policy to enforce against the will of the people." 
Since then he has been petted in Europe^— he 



AS A NATION. 1 39 

has become the money man's man — and while 
ninety-nine one-hundredths of his countrymen 
are clamoring for the passage of a certain bill, 
he says he would veto it, if he had the power. 
He would thwart the will of his countrymen in 
the interest of the capitalist. 

Listen ! After declaring that he would veto 
the bill had he an opportunity, he added: 

"And, should Congress pass it over my veto, I would 
urge the business community to disregard it by refusing to 
make contracts not payable in gold." 

Now, I ask this people to stop and think. 
Had General Grant been President when the 
bill for the remonetization of silver became a 
law, he would have been bound, by an oath 
registered in high Heaven, to encourage the 
enforcement of that law. Would he have 
regarded his oath in the interests of the people 
and good government? He says not. On the 
contrary he would urge the business commu- 
nity to disregard it, in the interest of the 
moneyed aristocracy of the two continents. 
That declaration by General Grant can not be 
said to be just like those made by Jefferson 
Davis before the breaking out of the rebellion,} 
but there are very strong points of similarity. 
Davis asked the Southern people to disregard 
the acts of Congress; General Grant would 



140 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

advise the whole business community, North 
and South, to do the same thing. The senti- 
ments are alike, in that they both show a total 
disregard of the will of the majority of the 
American people. They are both anti-Repub- 
lican, and one as much so as the other. 

ANTI-REPUBLICAN SENTIMENTS OF THE NEW YORK 
TRIBUNE. 

The same motive that prompted General 
Grant's letter to Judge Long, undoubtedly 
influenced the New York Tribune, under the 
management of Whitelaw Reid, to speak as 
follows : 

■*The time is near when they (the banks) will feel them- 
selves compelled to act strongly. Meanwhile a very good 
thing has been done. The machinery is now furnished by 
which, in any emergency, the financial corporations of the 
East can act together on a single day's notice, with such 
power that no act of Congress can overcome or resist their 
decision." 

**A very good thing has been done,*' says 
the Tribune, What is that good thing? Why 
it is a good thing that the machinery is nc-a 
furnished by which, in any emxergency, the 
financial corporations of the East can act to- 
gether, at a single day's notice, with such power 
that no act of Congress can overcome or resist 
their decision. ^ 



AS A NATION. I4I 

Here you have it, not from an obscure and 
irresponsible source, but from as high authority 
as the money power can give. The New York 
Tribune is a leading metropolitan journal, 
owned by moneyed men, and whatever we may 
think of its tendency to misrepresent on other 
subjects, it certainly has no conceivable motive 
to mislead in this case. No paper on the Con- 
tinent indicates the drift of sentiment in the 
money circles with more certitude. And here 
is a clear cut and ringing declaration that, in 
an emergency, the financial corporations of the 
East can act with more power than the Amer- 
ican people. Great God! is it true? Can it be 
that the financial corporations ot the East can 
overcome the decision of this people on twenty- 
four hours' notice? Is this mighty nation help- 
less in the hands of the money power? Is the 
boasted Republic at the feet of Shylock? The 
Tribune says it is, and that it is a good thing. 

Fellow-countrymen, is this the dear old 
Tribune which, guided by the strong hand of 
Horace Greeley, did more than any other one 
influence to revolutionize the sentiment of a 
continent in the interest of freedom? Is this 
the Tribune that did more than any twenty 
men on earth to make it possible to raise the 
magnificent army that conquered the rebellion? 



142 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Is this the Tribune from which Abraham Lin- 
coln said he learned his statesmanship ? How 
does its sentiments accord with those which fell 
in solemn beauty from the lips of Lincoln on 
the immortal field of Gettysburg, "That this is 
a government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people.'* According to the Tri- 
bune, this is a government of the banks, by the 
banks, and for the banks. Oh, Tribune! how 
fallen ! Oh, people ! how apathetic ! 

The fact that one of our leading journals can 
rejoice over the supremacy of the money power 
in this country, and still reti.in a leading posi- 
tion in the dominant political party, shows a 
condition of the public mind sad to contem- 
plate. Shall we not ask ourselves: Whither 
are we drifting as a nation? 

In the same line, and off the same piece, 
with that of the New York Tribune^ is the fol- 
lowing from the New York World: 

"The American laborer must make up his mind hence- 
forth not to be so much better off than the European 
laborer. Men must be content to work for less wages. In 
this way the workingman will be nearer to that station in 
flife to which it has pleased God to call him." 

Here is one of the leading and most power- 
ful Democratic journals in the United States, 
telling the laboring people that they must be 



AS A NATION. 1 43 

reduced to a level with the laborers of Europe 
— that they must work for less wages — that that 
is what God intended when he created them. 
In other words, that they are fit for nothing 
but slaves. 

With this unquestioned evidence of the ani- 
mus of the money power before you, can you 
doubt, that sooner or later, the capitalists in- 
tend to curtail the rights of the laboring peo- 
ple by legislation, as thay have so often done, 
by threatening the loss of employment? 

DR. BELLOWS' TESTIMONY. 

I will now introduce another witness, hardly 
less prominent in American society and the 
world of letters than those last mentioned. 
According to the New York Sun of May 12, 
1880,* the Rev. Dr. Bellows, in his speech at 
a dinner of the Chamber of Commerce of that 
city, remarked that he had 

** Observed among cultivated Americans a certain dis- 
trust of American institutions." 

And he added that, in a conversation with 
Lord Napier, the Englishman told him that 

''He had never met a first-class American man who had 
any confidence in the permanency of American institu- 
tions." 

NoTR — *My memorandum showing the year of this date is so blurred 
that I cannot be sure of the year.— [Ed. 



144 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Dr. Bellows said he told Lord Napier that 
he had never talked with the American farmers. 
You will hardly need to be told that Dr. Bellows 
is one of the ablest, as he is one of the most 
popular, divines in the United States. He has 
opportunities to learn that for which the press is 
paid to keep you in ignorance. He has a large 
circle of acquaintances, and they are of that 
class — -"Cultivated Americans." And he tells 
you that "they distrust American institutions." 

Fellow citizens, are these straws ? They are 
more; they are mighty arguments. Every 
one emanates from responsible sources and 
falls like a dirge upon the ear of the patriot. 
They point with unerring certainty to the sol- 
emn fact, that among the aristocratic classes in 
this country, there is a deep decay of that pa- 
triotic feeling which characterized our wealthy 
citizens in the early days of this Republic. 
Need I tell you who has touched the hand of 
Lord Napier within the last few years ? They 
are the leaders in the two great polidcal par- 
ties now shaping the policy and destiny of this 
nation. And he tells you that not one of them 
has any confidence in the permanancy of Amer- 
ican institutions. Think a moment, I beseech 
you ! With that spirit dominant in the councils 
of the nation, and controlling the press of the 



AS A NATION. 1 45 

country, whither, think you, are we drifting as a 
nation? Oh, for a Lincoln! I would that his 
voice from his starry home behind the battle- 
ments of heaven could pierce the sky, and ring 
in every ear and linger upon every heart, till this 
people could be awakened to a sense of the 
danger that threatens them. 

LINCOLN'S WARNING AGAIN. 

A brief reference to Lincoln's warning shall 
refresh your memory with regard to the dan- 
gerous drift of the American Republic: 

" Monarcliy is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge 
from the power of the people." 

What does it mean? It means that a certain 
class of men are seeking refuge from the power 
of the people. To do this they must get be- 
yond the reach of your votes, so that you can 
neither elect them to office nor remove them 
therefrom. In other words change the form of 
our Government so as to secure a life tenure 
for the civil officers. 

What would Lincoln have said — what could 
that glorious patriot have said had he lived to 
have read President Arthur's messaore to Con- 

o 

gress, in which he asks for the adoption of the 
English system of civil service in this country, 
which means to place at least eight-tenths of 
10— D. 



146 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the civil officers in this Government in office 
for life, to retire pensioned on the people's 
earnings when they see fit to do so? Why, 
fellow- citizens, it seems that a certain class 
have agreed to change our form of Govern- 
ment so as to secure these results. Read the 
following from President Arthur's message for 
December, 1882: 

"As to the most probable terms and tenure of the official 
life of the subordinate employes of the government, it 
seems to be generally agreed that whatever their extent or 
character, the one should be definite and the other stable." 

Observe the language here used : '' It seems 
to be generally agreed," etc. Among whom 
has it been generally agreed that whatever the 
extent or character of life in the subordinate 
offices of the Government, one shall be definite 
and the odier stable ? Have the people agreed 
to give the civil officers of this Government a 
life tenure ? Have the people agreed to place 
a hundred thousand government officers be- 
yond their reach forever? Have the people 
agreed that for all time to come they and 
their posterity shall accept and pay for the 
services of a hundred thousand men whom 
they can neither elect to office nor remove 
therefrom? No, sir; they have not agreed to 
any such thing. President Arthur has not 



AS A NATION. 1 47 

consulted them in the matter ; nor does he 
desire to. When he says ** It is generally 
agreed to," etc., he means that it is agreed to 
by that gang of monarchial capitalists by 
whom he is surrounded. Fellow-citizens, note 
the sad fact that President Arthur's message 
has been indorsed, either tacitly or otherwise, 
by the leading press of both old parties in this 
country. When a President of the United 
States of America can recommend that more 
than one hundred thousand officers in the 
government be put beyond the power of the 
people to control them, and not feel the very 
earth beneath his feet quake with an outraged 
nation's wrath, then may we not fear that the 
world's last great Republic is passing the 
zenith of her glory, her sun gliding down 
the western sky, and that a night dark and 
starless is soon to settle down upon our free 
institutions. That message of President Ar- 
thur is a feeler thrown out to see what re- 
sponse will come back from the people. If 
they receive it without much complaint, we 
shall soon have that relic of barbarism, the 
English system of civil service, fastened upon 
us. Soon another step will be taken in the 
same direction, then another and another, until 
the people awake to find the Government in 



148 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

» 

the hands of an irresponsible aristocracy, 
standing squarely across the laborers* pathway 
of advacement. 

Fellow-countr>^men, seeds, gathered from the 
tyrannical systems of a cruel and despotic 
past, are being scattered by ruthless hands in 
the green fields of Columbia. 

The tyrant, from whom our fathers fled, fol- 
lowed them across the sea. Seven dreadful 
years they grappled with the enemy of their 
liberties, and finally drove him back to watch, 
with malicious dread, their country's lengthen- 
ing strides to greatness. In 1861 the quick 
eye of Lincoln caught a glimpse of the tyrant's 
return. It sent a shiver along the good man's 
nerves, and he warned his countrymen of ap- 
proaching danger. 

That same tyrant is nov/ invited by our Pres- 
ident. Shall he come? Shall he set foot upon 
the soil that nurtured a Washington, whose 
sword once cut so deeply Into his very vitals ? — 
Shall he sit in triumph on the grave of a Henry, 
who, with eye lit with more than mortal flame, 
exclaimed, in tones that were heard around the 
world, **Give me liberty or give me death!'* 
Shall he be enthroned in the country that en- 
tombs the ashes of a Jefferson, who penned 
the immortal Declaration of American Inde- 



AS A NATION. 1 49 

pendence, which incurred the everlasting hatred 
of the tyrant who is now invited to place his 
friends and allies in a hundred thousand offices 
in our beloved country? 

I beseech our people to thunder their nega- 
tive in the ear of the present Administration, 
an^ to condemn every aider and abetter in the 
devilish scheme to the shades of private life 
forever. May their mighty No! fall like a 
thunder-clap upon the ear of every despot on 
earth. May their answer ring out from every 
ballot-box in the land, and be borne by friendly 
gales to every sea and the islands that dot their 
broad bosoms, and to every mariner that rides 
the wave; and in every cot and cabin under 
heaven be heard the glad tidings that Ameri- 
can freeman have rebuked the insolence of 
capital, and that henceforth the country of 
Washington and Lincoln is dedicated to Re- 
publican institutions — pure and simple. 



PART SECOND. 



PREFACE. 



Man was made to labor, Is the voice of God, 
through nature. To shun it, is to invite dis- 
ease, decay, and moral death. To oppress it, 
is to stifle the noblest aspirations of the human 
soul. To encourage and protect it, is the 
highest duty of government. 

That our government fails in this duty be- 
cause the mind of the people can not act 
directly upon it, I verily believe. To assist in 
removing the obstacles that lie in the way of 
the full and perfect realization of all that labor 
has a right to expect, or can reasonably hope 
for, through the government, is the object of 
the following discussion. 

F. O. WiLLEY 



THE REMEDY. 



It has ever been the argument of despots 
that a popular government is ahvays in a tur- 
moil — like the troubled sea, etc. This turmoil 
is presumed to arise from the fact that, in a 
republic, the people are allowed to choose their 
own rulers, who are supposed to represent 
Vi^hat monarchists are pleased to denominate 
the fickle will of the populace, and, therefore, 
can not be depended upon for a steady and 
strong government. That such opinions are 
gaining ground in this country to an alarming 
extent is too plain a truth to need demonstrat- 
ing, and the yielding condition of the public 
mind appears favorable to its growth. The 
people seem to have become discouraged. 
They admit that our liberties are curtailed, and 
even threatened with overthrow. But, they 
I say, money is all powerful!. If we elect a man 
in our interest, the capitalists buy him; and 
what are we to do about it? 

This question is asked almost daily by more 
than three-fourths of the voters of the United 



AS A NATION. 1 53 

States. How shall we answer it, and what 
have we with which to check the painful ten- 
dency toward centralization and the merciless 
march of the money power? Shall we offer the 
old Democratic party as a remedy? It would 
^ladiy seize the reins of power. Rut we have 
no guarantee that it would give better security 
to business, or better protection to free institu- 
tions than the Republican party is giving. 

Shall we offer the Greenback party? It has 
some noble reformatory principles in its plat- 
form. Its ascension to power would undoubt- 
edly shift much of the burden of taxation from 
the shoulders of the poor to the shoulders of 
the rich, where it belongs. But what guarantee 
have we that the Greenback party, once en- 
trenched in a hundred thousand offices, will not 
become as corrupt as other parties have? 

None whatever. Human nature is much the 
same in all parties. Money, place and power 
are very tempting. Should the Greenback 
party get Into power, it would be as loath as 
any other party to yield that power. Then 
comes a desperate struggle to remove it ; the 
same battles must be fought over again with 
the same fearful odds against the people, viz.: 
the dominant party In possession of a hundred 
thousand offices, with their influence extending 



154 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

to the remotest corners of the United States, 
controlling the avenues of intelligence, and 
misleading the people. 

By what means, then, shall we secure safety 
to our institutions and continued prosperity to 
our people, if not through one of the present 
political organizations ? I answer, by organizing 
a party with a platform of principles, the triumph 
of which will destroy the power of the capital- 
ists to secure class legislation by the corrupt 
use of money. But how can this be done ? 

To answer this question properly, we need 
to understand precisely what kind of a govern- 
ment we are now living under. I will begin 
the inquiry with a quotation from Abbott's Life 
of Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, who 
succeeded Franklin as Minister to France, is 
spoken of by Mr. Abbott as follows: 

"He saw and fully compreliended the misery under 
wliicli millions of the French peasantry were groaning. 
And this led him to the conviction that no people could be 
safe unless the government were placed in their own hands." 

An attempt was made to establish our own 
government upon this idea of Jefferson's, and a 
very long step was taken in that direction. 
Indeed, many did and do now believe, that it 
was accomplished as intended. The popular 
idea of the American Government is repre- 



AS A NATION. 1 55 

sented in the following, which I find in "Ban- 
croft's Footprints of Time, and Analysis of our 
Government/' page 401 : 

"The National Congress is a body of men representing 
and acting in the place of the people. They are elected by 
the people to enact laws for the public good — to do all, and 
no more nor less — than the people would do if it were pos- 
sible for them to assemble in one great body and make the 
laws by which they w^ish to be governed." 

The above quotation expresses the Amer- 
ican theory of our government, but in practice 
it works very differently. Congress does not 
do within gun shot of what the people would 
do, could they all assemble together and make 
their own laws. 

The following is from Poor's Manual for the 
railroads : 

THE LAND GRANT. 

**The land grant of the Northern Pacific Railroad con- 
sists of 12,800 acres to each mile of track through Minne- 
sota, and 25,600 acres per mile through Dakota, Montana, 
Idaho, Washington and Oregon — the branch to Puget 
Sound having the same grant as the main line. The aver- 
age for the whole length of the road and branch is over 
23,000 acres per mile, and the total exceeds fifty millions 
of acres of * * lands. AVhat is their money value ?^ 
The lands of the Union Pacific thus far sold have averaged' 
$4.46 per acre; the school lands of Minnesota, $6.30 per 
acre; the lands of the Illinois Central Railroad grant, $11 
per acre. At even the average of $4 per acre the lands of 



156 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the Northern Pacific Railroad will pay for its construction 
and equipment, and leave the road free from debt, and 
one-half the lands unincumbered in the company's posses- 
sion. At only $2.50 per acre, government price, these 
lands will build and equip the road, leave it free of debt, 
and place a surplus of twenty-five million dollars in the 
company's treasury." 

The above quotation is from Poor's Manual 
of the Railroads, for 187 1-2, a work written in 
the interests of the railroads, and here it is ad- 
mitted that the land given to the Northern Pa- 
cific Railroad Company, at * Government price, 
will build and equip the road, leave it free from 
debt, and place twenty five million dollars in 
the treasury of the company, while at four dol- 
lars per acre, it will build and equip the road, 
and leave one half of the land unincumbered 
in the hands of the company. The company's 
land, however, sold at the moderate price of 
four dollars per acre, the unincumbered half of 
the fifty-mlUIon-acre grant would be worth to 
the company one hundred million dollars. 

Now, look at these figures and answer. 
Does any man in his senses believe that the 
people would vote away their property to that 
extent, could they assemble together and make 
the laws themselves? . 

Again : Vf ould they have repealed the law 
imposing a tax on incomes, as Congress did ? 



AS A NATION. 1 57 

In 1868 the Government received over thirty 
million dollars tax from incomes. This tax was 
collected from about two hundred and fifty 
thousand persons, who were receiving the 
enormous income of eight hundred million dol- 
lars per annum, or about eight-tenths of the 
net gain of the entire country. Had the peo- 
ple had the making of the laws themselves, 
that income tax law would have been upon the 
statute book to day, and the people's burdens 
would have been that much lighter. 

Again: Do you think the five-twenty bonds 
would have been made payable in gold, in 
1869, as they were, if the people had had the 
making of the laws direct? No, sir; they 
would have inquired into the matter, under- 
stood it, and defeated the devilish scheme of 
robbery. All through the records of Congress 
are to be found sentiments like those of John 
Sherman, late Secretary of the Treasury. In 
a speech in the Senate, February 27, 1868, he 
said : 

"I said that equity and justice were amply satisfied if 
we redeem these bonds at maturity in the same kind of 
money, of the same intrinsic value it bore at the time they 
were issued. I said that gentlemen may reason about the 
matter over and over again, and they cannot come to any 
other conclusion — at least, that has been my conclusion 
after the most careful deliberation." 



158 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Such were the sentiments of Mr. Sherman 
before he deserted the people and went over 
to the money power. It is common sense that 
no man can resist. But the so-called credit 
strengthening- act was passed in Washington, 
thus enabling the bondholder to get one dollar 
for each fifty cents he invested in bonds, while 
the soldier only received fifty cents for each 
dollar he earned on the field. The people 
knowing they could not vote on it, did not 
seek to know much about it, and the records 
not being easily accessible, the press, in the 
interest of the bondholder, kept them blind. 
That one act of Congress transferred more 
than six hundred million dollars of hard-earned 
money from the pockets of the people to the 
pockets of the bondholder, a sum so vast that 
the interest alone, used annually, for the ben- 
efit of the poor, would banish destitution from 
the land forever. 

The last act of Congress, to which I shall 
refer, to prove that the people are not truly 
represented there, is that by which it author- 
ized the Secretary of the Treasury to shrink 
the volume of money then in circulation, and 
which shrinkage in the volume of money stag- 
nated business, filled our streets with tramps, 
sent prices down two-thirds, and brought inde- 



AS A NATION. 1 59 

scribable suffering upon our country. When 
the shrinkage of the volume of money was 
under discussion in the Senate, John Sherman 
spoke as follows: 

"It is not possible to take this voyage (meaning the 
shrinkage of the volume of money) without the sorest dis- 
tress to every person except a capitalist out of debt or a 
salaried officer or annuitant. It is a period of loss, danger, 
lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of enterprise, 
bankruptcy and disaster. ^ * It means the fall of all 
agricultural productions, without any very great reduction 
of taxes." 

Now, could the people have been induced 
to vote for a law which they had reason to be- 
lieve would bring disaster and bankruptcy upon 
the country and destroy their own prosperity 
and happiness, by lowering the price of their 
labor and all its prpducts? No, sir; but Con- 
gress did it. Congress was willing to lov/er 
the price of labor and all agricultural produc- 
tions, because that body was made up largely 
of moneyed men, and the more the price of 
labor and its products were lowered the more 
the Congressman's money would buy. Hence 
the interest and policy of moneyed men was to 
shrink the volume of money. But, sir, had the 
question been submitted to the people they 
would have investiq^ated the matter, and when 



l6o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

they had learned (as they surely would) that 
a shrinkage in the volume of money meant a 
shrinkage in the price of their labor and all its 
products, they would have defeated the measure 
by an overwhelming majority. 

No further argument is needed to prove that 
the laws by which we are governed are not 
made as they would be could the people all 
assemble together and make them by a direct 
vote. On the contrary, our laws are made in 
the interest of capital and centralization. Our 
law makers are so far removed from us as ta 
be within easy reach of capital. Hence the 
people's interests are ignored at Washington, 
while those of capital are carefully guarded. 
Our financial system is so arranged that the 
banks can enlarge and contract the volume of 
money in circulation, send prices up and down, 
pocket the difference, and thus harvest the 
earnings of the people without hinderance. 
How are we to protect ourselves? Shall we 
adopt Jefferson's plan: 

''Take the power to issue money from the banks and re- 
store it to the Government and the people, where it be- 
longs." 

This would be right. But a corrupt Con- 
gress once contracted the volume of money, in 
the interest of the rich, and brought the coun- 



AS A NATION. l6l 

try to the very verge of ruin, thus proving that 
Congress even, under the Constitution as it is, 
can not be trusted to control the volume of 
money or make laws for the people. Moneyed 
men, in and out of that body, can influence it 
to do great harm before the people can inter- 
fere to prevent it. 

What, then, can we do to save ourselves 
from the merciless clutch of avarice? The peo- 
ple understand that they can not all assemble 
together and make the laws themselves, and 
they believe that our representatives can be 
bribed or influenced by the money power. 
Hence, they can not be induced to move reso- 
lutely in the direction of reform. They are 
bewildered and know not where to go. No 
political party offers them a complete remedy. 

FIRST PLANK OF THE NEW PLATFORM. 

The only way to induce the voting masses to 
engage earnestly in a reform movement, is to 
organize a party upon a platform of principles, 
the triumph of which wnW place the Govern- 
ment so completely in the hands of the peo- 
ple as to make it impossible for the money 
power to thwart their purpose. To this end I 
would suggest that the first plank in the new 
platform demand that the records of Congress 
11— D. 



1 62 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

be placed in every postoffice In the United 
States. This can be done at a cost of a frac- 
tion of a cent for each citizen, a sum too tri- 
fling to be weic^hed against the mighty results 
that must follow. Place the Congressional 
Record In every postoffice, and our represen- 
tatives will be obliged to face their own words 
and acts at every hearthstone in the land, and 
every law proposed or passed by them will be 
discussed in every school house in the Union. 
This will destroy at once and forever the power 
of a partisan press and demagogues to deceive 
the people. Speeches made in Congress in 
the interests of the people, are almost entirely 
ignored by the press, or so garbled as to en- 
tirely mislead the people as to their real con- 
tents. Our metropolitan newspapers are al- 
most entirely under the control of the money 
power. 

Hence, no permanent step can be taken in 
the direction of reform, and Apierican liberty 
can have no sure basis while the people are 
obliged to depend upon a partisan press and 
unscrupulous politicians for a knowledge of the 
doings of their representatives in Congress. 
Then, how imperative the demand, and how 
overwhelming the argument, for the placing of 
the Congressional Record in every postoffice 



1 



AS A NATION. 1 63 

for the Inspection of everybody It will mark 
a new era in American politics. It v;Ill do 
much to put our law makers on their good 
behavior. It will be a bombshell In the campj 
of the money power, and a mighty barrier to 
the progress of centralization and despotism. 

SECOND PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the second plank in the 
new platform demand that all civil officers of 
the Government be elected by a direct vote 
of the people (so far as it can be made practic- 
able) and that any officer so elected may be 
removed from office before the expiration of 
his term by a two-thirds vote of those who 
elected him, and also, that his successor may 
be chosen by a majority vote, as . in the first 
instance. This proposition Is pregnant with 
much meaning. It will hardly be questioned 
that the one great duty of the hour is to make 
every man realize his individual responsibility 
as an American citizen, and to make him con- 
scious of his power In the Government. The 
way to do this is to bring the Government so 
near to him that his vote may act directly on 
the Government, and react directly on himself; 
In other words, make him feel immediately the 
effects of his own vote. The one great cause 



164 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

of the present depraved and alarming condi- 
tion of American politics is, that so many peo- 
ple do not realize their own responsibility in 
the matter of voting. This lack of conscious 
responsibilty is due to the fact that their ballot is 
too remote and uncertain in its effect upon the 
Government and voter. Under the present 
regime, one's vote is likely to bring a result 
quite opposite to the one intended. There are 
too many chances to thwart the purpose of the 
voter. How often I have heard the remark : 
*' It is no use to vote. The money power con- 
trols the whole political machinery of the Gov- 
ernment, captures the leaders, and uses all 
political parties to promote its own interests, 
and we can't help ourselves." We can help 
ourselves. But in order to do so, we must 
take possession of the tools by which the 
money power controls political parties. They 
are ours by inherent right, and we should 
not permit the capitalists to hold them and use 
them to oppress us. One of the most potent 
means now used in the interest of capital and 
centralization, and against labor snd demo- 
cratic government, is the appointing power. 
The people should assert, at once and forever, 
their natural right — to elect all the civil officers 
of the Government by their own direct vote. 



AS A NATION. 1 65 

When a thing Is done by proxy there Is danger 
that the original intent will not be carried 
out. When you intrust your business to an 
agent, even if he be honest, there Is a chance 
for}rOu to be misrepresented and thwarted in 
your purposes. It is an old maxim, the truih 
of which is self-evident, "That the safest way 
to do business, is to do It yourself" If this be 
true in the ordinary business relations of life, 
how forcibly true In the people's relations with 
the Government, which are of a ten fold higher 
character, and in which, from the very nature 
of the case, misrepresentation is much more 
liable to occur. In mercantile transactions, 
and. Indeed, all business transactions, con- 
ducted by individuals or corporations, agents 
are not only appointed directly by the employ- 
ers, but must account to them directly for the 
manner In which they transact the business 
Intrusted to their care. Not only is the agent 
obliged to render a correct account, but he is 
liable to discharge at any time for negligence, 
incompetency, or any cause which the employer 
may deem sufficient. Hence, he is not only 
influenced by a sense of duty to his employer, 
but by the ever present danger of loss of em- 
ployment. His master can reach him when- 
ever he ceases to be a profitable servant. 



l66 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The same relations ought to exist between 
the people and those who enter the civil service 
of the Government. The people have the 
natural right, and should have the power to 
choose their servants from the smallest post- 
master, who handles their mail, to the Supreme 
Judge, who determines their rights under the 
law. Deny the people this power and you 
make the civil officers of the Government mas- 
ters instead of servants. Indeed, this is pre- 
cisely what the appointing system does. How 
frequently some broken down politician, whom 
the people have refused office time and again, 
is taken up and given a lucrative position by 
the appointing power. Now he is master for 
from two to six years. He can do as he 
pleases and defy the people. Not considering 
him worthy of trust, the people have repudiated 
him. But this makes no difference, the ap- 
pointing power is above the people, and they 
must take him however unwilling. If they re- 
fuse his services in one capacity they are forced 
to accept them in another and pay for them 
also. This is despotism. The very thought 
that a system exists in this country through 
which the people can be forced to accept and 
pay for the services of one whom they have 
condemned by their votes, is humiliating and 



AS A NATION. 1 67 

saddening to one who loves freedom and be- 
lieves in the right of the people to govern 
themselves. 

As a rule, the appointments in the civil ser- 
vice are secured by rich men and those who 
occupy favored positions. The people are not 
consulted in the matter at all, but are generally 
2;^sulted by the appointment of some one who 
is obnoxious to them. The appointee is very 
likely to be some one who stands high as a 
ward politician. In other words, has done ef- 
fective electioneering, not in the interest of the 
people, but in the interest of the appointing 
power, or those who have influence with that 
power. Officers so elected very naturally work 
for the pet measures of those who secure their ap- 
pointment, and who can procure their removal. 
Give the people the power to appoint and re- 
move and those same officers will necessarily 
work for the pet measures of the people. 

When the day comes that every civil em- 
ploye of the Government is dependent upon 
the people for his appointment to office, and 
also for his continuance therein to the end of 
his term, the people's petitions will be heeded 
and their interests well guarded. 

Under such a system of civil service we can 
safely elect our civil officers for any length of 



1 68 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

time. Let the demand that the people elect 
all their civil officers by direct vote, and remove 
them when they prove unfaithful to their trust, 
constitute the second plank in the platform of 
the new party. 

THIRD PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the third plank in the 
new platform demand: 

First', That only the Government be al- 
lowed to issue money. 

Second. That all money in circulation be a 
full legal tender for all debts and dues to and 
from the Government, and between man and 
man. 

Third. That the Government loan money 
to the people at a rate of interest not exceed- 
ing three per cent. 

Fourth. That the volume of money be en- 
larged to at least fifty dollars per capita, and 
that said volume shall not be diminished nor 
increased except in a fixed ratio to the popula- 
tion of the country. 

Fifth. That the rules governing the loaning 
of said money by the Government shall be 
such as to prevent wealthy corporations from 
taking it out in large quantities, lor the purpose 
of absorbing and controlling it. 



AS A NATION. 169 

Of the necessity for the third plank in the 
new platform, I would say: Money is indis- 
pensable to the proper exchange of the pro- 
ducts of labor and all property. The Ameri- 
can people must have a medium of exchange. 
There is a large profit in furnishing that medi- 
um. That profit the people should have- in- 
stead of the banks. The justice of this pro- 
position will not be questioned when we 
consider the part the people play in the matter 
of furnishing money. 

I will here quote the following from Peter 
Cooper's appeal to the people in 1882. The 
name of the author is a sufficient guarantee for 
its correctness: 

FACTS WORTHY OP CAREFUL CONSIDERATION. 

"Mr. John Knox, the Comptroller of the Currency, in 
his annual report for the year 1880, recently published, 
says that the banks now established in the United States 
are as follows : 

National banks 2,076 

State, savings and private banks 4,456 

Total number of banks 6,532 

**The capital of these banks is as follows: 

National banks $455,910,000 

State, savings and private banks 194,140,000 

Total capital . $650,050,000 



lyO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

*' These banks have the money of the people deposited 
in them as follows : 

National banks . ........... $900,790,000 

State, savings and private banks 1,319,090,000 

Total deposits $2,219,880,000 

"The national banks invest their capital mostly in gov- 
ernment bonds, on which the Secretary of the Treasury 
has given them, in national bank notes, $342,063,451. 
Now if we take the amount of the bank notes, which is 
practically a free gift of the people to the national banks, 
from the amount of capital it stands as follows : 

Capital of the national banks $455,910,000 

National bank notes out 342,063,451 

It leaves of actual capital but . . . . $113,846,549 

" On this they hold of the people's money deposited with 
them $900,790,000. These figures show that the national 
banks are using and doing business with about $8 of the 
money belonging to the people to each $1 of their own 
money invested. 

"By comparing the amount of deposits in the State, sav- 
ings and private banks with their capital, we discover that 
they are using $7 of the people's money to $1 of their own. 

"Now, if we take the amount of bank notes from the 
total capital of all the banks, we find that it is as follows: 

Total amount of capital $650,050,000 

Banknotes 342,063,451 

It leaves of actual capital $307,986,549 

"By comparison of these figures with the total amount 
of deposits held by all the banks, it will be observed that 



AS A NATION. I7I 

the entire banking institutions of the country hold and use 
about $7 of money belonging to the people to $1 of their 
own capital invested." 

Is not this statement of Peter Cooper a hor- 
rid picture of the apathy and inconsiderateness 
of the American people in allowing a system 
of banking to exist which compels them to pay 
interest on money owned by themselves and 
secured by themselves, and which, if redeemed 
at all, must be redeemed by themselves, since 
they own the specie held in the Government 
vaults for the purpose of redeeming paper cur- 
rency ? 

Observb the following reasons why the peo- 
ple should have the profits that may arise from 
the furnishing of a circulating medium which 
they must use in exchanging their property and 
the products of their labor : 

First. They furnish about seven eighths of 
the money. 

Seco7id. They pledge their property for 
every dollar when it goes into circulation. 

Third. They guarantee its redemption, and 
own the specie which is kept in the Govern- 
ment vaults for that purpose. Hence, money 
circulates not on the credit of the banks, but 
on the credit of the people. Clearly, then, the 
people are entitled to the profits arising from 
that circulation. 



172 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

This IS a correct principle, founded in justice, 
and admitted even by Earl Williams, President 
of the Metropolitan Bank, New York, in the 
following language, which I quote from Peter 
Cooper's appeal before mentioned: 

" I would suggest: That Congress at once assume the in- 
herent sovereign prerogative of a government ' of the peo- 
ple, by the people, and for the people,' and exercise it by 
furnishing all the inhabitants of the United States with a uni- 
form national currency! Surely the people, and the people 
only, have a natural right to all the advantages, emolu- 
ments or income that may inure from the issue of either 
one dollar bonds with interest, or ten dollar notes without, 
based on the faith and credit of the nation." 

Bankers understand that it is the right and 
duty of the Government to furnish the people 
with money; but banking is a money making 
business, and all bankers are not as honest and 
patriotic as Mr. Williams. 

But, sirs, I demand that this Government 
shall issue money and loan it to the people for 
other and higher reasons than that the banks 
draw interest on the people's money. I place 
it upon the ground that our present monetary 
system will impoverish the people and destroy 
American liberty. In this opinion I am joined 
by the New York Commercial Advertiser, a 
staunch bank money organ. In its issue of 



AS A NATION. I 73 

October 6, 1883, in relation to bank notes and 
Government bonds, it spoke as follows: 

''Mr. Knox, Comptroller of the Currency, is renewing 
his plan for . the issuing of a three per cent, twenty-four- 
year bond , with a fifteen per cent, bonus for the exchange 
of the four per cents. This plan would be acceptable were 
the life of the bond longer. Twenty-four years is too short 
a time. We question the expediency of such a step. 
Forty or iifty years would seem more practicable, and yet 
with the present tendency of wealth toward centralization, 
a long-time bond, in this country of 60,000,000 people — 
perhaps 70,000,000 in the near future — means the certain 
absorption of by far the greatest proportion by millionaires 
and banking houses, at the expense of the poor. AU 
things considered, however, a perpetual debt is the safest, 
most conservative system of financiering a country can. 
possess, one of its greatest boons being the prevention of 
periodical tinkering of the currency by unsafe and bigoted 
partisans." 

Here you will observe the leading commer- 
cial newspaper in the United States admits that 
our present monetary system means the certain 
absorption of the wealth of the country by 
millionaires and banking houses at the expense 
of the poor. The difference being that the 
Advertiser heartlessly commends the system 
while I condemn it as a soul destroying and 
liberty crushing enemy of the human race. 

Why, think a moment, there is probably not 



174 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

less than two billion, five hundred million of 
money loaned to the people by banking 
houses. Seven-eighths, or ^2,187,500,000 of 
this money belongs to the people. That is to 
say, the people are paying interest on ^1,187,- 
500,000 of their own money, which at eight 
per cent, amounts to $175,000,000 annually. 
Allowing three hundred working days to the 
year, with wages at $1 per day, it will require 
the entire wages of 583,000 men constantly to 
pay it. 

This calculation does not include the money 
loaned by trust and loan companies, private 
loans, etc. I do not hesitate to state that the 
amount of the wages of more than 700,000 
men goes to pay the interest on money owned 
by the people. How long will it require the 
banking houses and millionaires to absorb the 
wealth of the nation at the present rate? Can 
any man tell why an army, larger than the 
North ever had in active service at any one 
time during the civil war, should be kept con- 
stantly at work for bankers and millionaires? 
,Why not have the Government establish loan 
agencies, and loan this money to the people, 
use the interest to pay Government expenses, 
and lift the burden of taxation from the shoul- 
ders of the people? If the people's property is 



AS A NATION. 1 75 

good security for Government bonds, it Is good 
security for money. 

I will here call your attention to the follow- 
ing, which I find on pages 51 and 52 of the 
Comptroller's report for 1878: 

*' Since November 1, 1877, receivers have been appointed 
for banks in operation at that date as follows : 

Capital. 

Third National Bank of Chicago, 111 $750,000 

Central National Bank of Chicago, 111 200,000 

First National Bank of Kansas City 500,000 

Commercial National Bank, Kansas City . . . 100,000 

First National Bank, Tarrytown 100,000 

Washington County National Bank, of Green- 
wich, N. Y 200,000 

First National Bank, Dallas, Texas 50,000 

People's National Bank, of Helena 100,000 

Pirst National Bank, Bozeman, Mont 50,000 

Farmers' National Bank, Platte City 50,000 

Total $2,100,000 

Here Is one year's failures of National banks, 
and what a picture it Is! Some, you will ob- 
serve, were very heavy, having a capital of 
more than half a million. According to the 
Comptroller's report, the aggregate loss to 
creditors from these follures was nearly one 
minion dollars. The public knew nothing of 
the unsound condidon of these banks until it 
was too late. From the sworn statements of 



176 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

their directors, the people had a right to believe 
them sound. They did believe them sound, 
and deposited their money with them. But, 
sir, they awoke from their dream of security to 
find their precious dollars swallowed up by a 
damnable banking association to the tune ot 
nearly an average of one hundred thousand 
dollars to each bank. Sir, every fiber of my 
being revolts at the idea of a banking associa- 
tion being chartered to compel this people ta 
pay high rates of interest on money furnished 
by themselves, and which association may 
squander the money which the aged and infirm, 
the widow and the orphan, may have deposited 
with them for safe keeping. 

Fellow-citizens, Vv^hy not inaugurate a mone- 
tary system under which you can choose your 
own banker, place him under bonds for the 
safe-keeping of every dollar intrusted to his 
care, and discharge him when he is unfaithful 
to his trust. Why, sir, it needs no further ar- 
gument to prove that our present .monetary 
system will centralize the wealth of the nation 
in the hands of a few than the simple state- 
ment of the fact that the highest estimate of 
the average net gain of labor is three per cent., 
while the average interest on money is eight 
per cent. Now it is plain that all the money 



AS A NATION. 1 77 

loaning class make above the average net 
gain ; the balance of the people must fall be- 
low. This reduces the average net gain of the 
people very materially and shows at what a 
fearful rate they are handing their property 
over to the money loaning class. 

Indeed, it needs no further argument to prove 
that the present rates of interest are drawing 
the wealth of the nation to the money loaning 
centers with startling rapidity, and if allowed 
to continue we shall soon have an impoverished 
people and a moneyed aristocracy, as cruel and 
despotic as that of the Old World. 

In fact it is only necessary to ascertain the 
amount of m^oney loaned and the per cent of 
net income thereon, above the net income of 
labor, to determine with almost mathematical 
certainty how much time it will require for the 
money-loaning class to absorb the wealth of 
the nation and leave the people to pay such 
rent as their masters dictate — as the Irish 
peasantry are now doing. It is a self-evident 
fact that any rate of interest above the average 
net gain of labor, will lodge the wealth of the 
nation in the hands of the money-loaning class 
and destroy the liberties of any people. 

The people do not consider these vital truths 
as they ought. The money power having con- 
12— D. 



178 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

trol of the metropolitan press of the country, 
have succeeded in making the people believe 
that banks and high rates of interest do not 
affect them unless they borrow money. But 
the people should understand that they pay in- 
terest on money whether they are in debt or 
not. To illustrate : I am purchasing wheat 
and labor with money that cost me no interest. 
I can exchange one of my dollars for a bushel of 
your wheat or for one day's work. Now, should 
I hand that money over to the banker, and al- 
low him to charge me ten per cent, interest on 
it, I could then give you only ninety cents for 
a bushel of wheat or a day's work. Why? 
Because ten per cent, has been added to the 
cost of my money. If during the next year 
the banker sees fit to charge twenty per cent, 
for money, I can then give you only eighty 
cents for a bushel of wheat or a day's work, 
because another ten per cent, has been added 
to the cost of my money. Thus you see, farmers, 
that every cent of interest on money must be 
deducted from labor and its products. Our 
money comes through banks, and whatever the 
rates of interest are the banker gets in the first 
instance, which must be deducted from what- 
ever that money is exchanged for ; in other 
words, whatever is added to the present rates 



AS A NATION. I 79 

of interest on money Is deducted from the price 
of your property, and whatever is deducted 
from the present rates of interest on money, is 
added to the price of your property, the products 
of your labor. Now, farmers, why in the name 
of common sense do you not arrange to get your 
money through the Government at three per 
cent., which will add five per cent, to the pres- 
ent exchange value of your property, (the 
present rates of interest being eight per cent), 
while the three per cent. Interest paid to the 
Government will pay the Government expenses 
and save you your taxes, and check the cen- 
tralizing tendencies of wealth, which threatens 
to destroy our free institutions. Should the 
policy which we have Indicated prevail, bankers 
could no longer control your financial destiny, 
and harvest your earnings, all of which they 
well understand. They will, therefore, contin- 
ue to subsidize the press and tyrannize over 
labor. 

Can not this people be induced to sweep 
the present banking laws from the statue 
books of this nation ? As soon as they come 
to understand the working of our present 
banking system, and its relations to their 
prosperity and continued freedom, they will 
strike down the infernal monster and drag its 



l8o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

corrupt carcass from across the path that leads 
this country to prosperity and happiness ! 

LEGAL TENDER MONEY. 

The necessity for a full legal tender money 
will be apparent when we consider that in a 
crisis, or when the balance of trade is ao-ainst 
us, gold and silver always disappear. (They 
are never to be had when they are most 
needed.) Then paper money, based on specie, 
depreciates in the hands of the people, be- 
cause its redeemer is gone, and it not being 
a full legal tender, will not be received at its 
face value in payment of all debts. 

Now, the American people want a paper 
money that will always be received at its face 
value in payment of all debts — public and pri- 
vate, just the same as gold is received. Then 
it will always be just as good as gold to use as 
money, because — as money — it will do all that, 
gold can do. Such paper money can be pro- 
duced by making it receivable for all debts 
and dues whatsoever. This will abolish all 
distinctions in money as a circulating medium, 
and make one kind just as good as another 
at all times for domestic use. The Comp- 
troller of the Currency unwittingly supports 
this view of the case in the following, which I 
find in his report for 1878, page 31 : 



AS A NATION. l8l 

**If the government also, forbearing all further legisla- 
tion upon the subject, will discontinue the issue of gold 
certificates at the treasury, and regard gold coin as prac- 
tically the equivalent of lawful money in all its disburse- 
ments, the distinction which has so long existed between 
coin and currency will rapidly fade away, and natural law 
will reassert its beneficent dominion over our financial af- 
fairs." 

Here the Comptroller admits that if the 
Government, in all its disbursements, will treat 
paper money as the equivalent of gold, the 
distinction so long existing between the two 
will rapidly disappear. In other words, such a 
course on the part of the Government will 
make a paper dollar as good as a gold dollar. 

Now, if this be true of the Government 
treating paper and gold as equals in its dis- 
bursements, how much more true it would be 
if the Government treated them as equals, also, 
in receiving its dues? 

One very important fact is deducible from 
the Comptroller's statement, viz. : That the 
treating of paper money by the Government 
as the equivalent of gold will make it the 
equivalent of gold. Then it must follow that 
treating it as inferior to gold made It inferior to 
gold. And, fellow-citizens, that was just what 
did it. This is proven beyond all cavil by the 
celebrated sixty million demand notes during 



1 82 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the war and afterwards. For a while the Gov- 
ernment treated them as inferior to gold by 
refusing to receive them in payment of import 
duties, as it did gold. This, of course, made 
them depreciate. They fell twenty per cent, 
below gold early in the war. But when the 
Government changed its course, and treated 
the demand notes as the equivalent of gold, 
by making them a full legal tender for all debts 
and dues, public and private, they immediately 
became as good as gold, and remained so. 
The Government, through the influence of gold 
gamblers, treated the greenback as inferior to 
gold by refusing to receive it for duties on im- 
ports and to pay it out for interest on the pub- 
lic debt; so, of course, the greenback depre- 
ciated. Thus, while the Government treated 
the greenback as inferior to gold, it treated the 
soldier as inferior to the bondholder by paying 
the soldier in the depreciated greenbacks, or 
National bank currency, while it paid the bond- 
holder in gold. Now, in the name of decency 
and humanity, let us make it impossible for 
this ever to take place again. Let us have a 
full legal tender money, and then come what 
will — war or Shylock hoard his gold, or it flee 
across the sea, everybody will be obliged to 
receive the same kind of rnoneyin payment of 



AS A NATION. 1 83 

debt, and every dollar, like the demand notes, 
will be good for its face value while the grand 
old flag waves, whether there is any specie to 
redeem it or not. 

For a large volume of money there is not 
only a just demand, but a very urgent ne- 
cessity. From reliable sources I learn that the 
people of Indiana fell short of keeping even 
with their debts $16,000,000 in 1880. There 
is no more prosperous State in the Union than 
Indiana. The American people, I have shown 
in Part First, from authentic sources, are fall- 
ing behind in their indebtedness — are strug- 
gling to get out of debt. To this end they 
are wearing poor clothes, and living close ; 
but in spite of their best efforts, they are fall- 
ing behind ; a large per cent, of their homes 
are mortgaged, and unless relief comes soon 
they must give them up to the money-loaning 
class. Every day their situation becomes more 
desperate. This is all the work of the mon- 
eyed interests in shrinking the volume of 
money from about fifty-two dollars per capita 
to less than twenty, thereby increasing the 
value of money and lowering the price of the 
products of labor, making it impossible for the 
people to pay their debts. 

Now, it is justice in the sight of God and 



184 ' ■ WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

man, to place the volume of money back to 
where it Vv^as in 1865. and thereby make 
money easier to get, to the end that the peo- 
ple may pay up their indebtedness, and save 
their homes from the clutch of Shy lock, and 
the land remain in the hands of those who 
have earned it, and improved it. Lay these 
facts before the people, and they will see both 
the justice of and the necessity for this course. 

If it be urged that enlarging the volume of 
money will lessen the chances to get paper 
money redeemed in specie, I ansv/er, nobody 
ever VN^^ants a full legal tender dollar redeemed 
in specie ; practically there is no redemption 
for their paper money now : first, because the 
Government has not sufficient money to re- 
deem with; second, because the smallest 
amount of paper money redeemable in specie 
by the Government is fifty dollars, and that, 
too, only at the sub-treasury in New York. 
Thus an overwhelming majority of the com- 
mon people are barred from the specie in the 
Government vaults, not only by distance from 
the place of redemption, but by the fact that 
nothing less than fifty dollars can reach it. 

And, finally, I would remind the people that 
the most prosperous times they ever knew was 
when there was no specie to be had. There 



AS A NATION. 1 85 

never was a time, in any country, when the 
people prospered with a small volume of money. 
There never was a time when they failed to 
prosper with a large volume. Our own experi- 
ence in 1865 and 1^66, I think, has demon- 
strated that fifty dollars per capita is necessary 
for the American people to do business suc- 
cessfully. 

We now have in circulation less than twenty- 
five. Let us place it back to fifty and keep it 
at that ratio by constitutional amendment. The 
volume of money in circulation must not be en- 
larged or contracted, because a rise or fall of 
prices is sure to follow, and this is always dan- 
gerous to those who are not in the ring to 
know when the change is going to take place.- 

AUTHORITIES SUPPORTING MY POSITIONS. 

I have intended that my readers shall under- 
stand that I am opposed to the specie basis, or 
mixed currency system, its whole history being 
that of disaster, suffering and woe to the peo- 
ple. That I may not appear to stand alone, I 
here introduce Mr. Francis A. Walker, Profes^ 
sor of History and Political Economy, in Yale 
College. Mr. Walker, in speaking of a mixed 
currency and the specie basis system, says : 

"Yet, under the fluctuations of a mixed currency, buy- 



1 86 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ers and sellers of all classes experience injustice as great and 
distressing as would result to dealers in cloth from that 
falsification of the yard-stick. This it is which makes 
business a very complicated kind of gambling. This it is 
that tosses up or pulls down prices, enough to ruin the 
merchant or the manufacturei^ or to make their fortunes, 
while their goods are in their hands, before they can be 
turned. * * Practically, mixed currency banks expand 
the currency as often and as much as possible; and, when 
reaction comes, they hold on to specie payments and a high 
rate of interest, until the bankruptcy of their debtors be- 
gins to be so alarming as to endanger their own securities. 
Then they suspend, and allow their debtors to pay up in 
notes they can not redeem in specie, and thus settle the in- 
debtedness of themselves and the public. 

'*Such is the natural result, and, on the whole, a highly 
satisfactory one to the banking interest." 

Of course, it is highly satisfactory to the 
banking interests, to have the people pay up 
the bankers' notes, which they can not redeem 
ih specie. 

When will the people open their eyes? 

In regard to the National bank currency, and 
our present system of banking, Prof. Walker 
says : 

*'The new currency resembles that of the old State 
banks, in that (after specie payments begin), it is a mixed 
currency, and in all essential respects, as to its nature and 
effects, of the same character. 

^^ First. It will expand and contract from the same 
causes, and with the same violence, and to the same ex- 



AS A NATION. 1 87 

tent (it will expand to a greater degree, from the fact of 
its greater credit among the people). 

*^ Second. It will be an equally delusive standard of 
value. 

" Third. It will raise prices and cause speculation when 
expanding, and depress prices and cause bankruptcies when 
contracting." 

Leaving the above quotation for your con- 
sideration, without comment, I will quote other 
high authority on the use of specie as money. 
William S. Jevons, Professor of Logic and 
Political Economy, in the Owens University, in 
England, speaks as follows: 

"We have seen that this is a weak point of the precious 
metals in their use as money. >i^ ^ * And the writers 
quoted are undoubtedly right in urging that the affixing of 
such a scale (the money scale) to any material commodity 
like gold and silver, must result in something less than 
justice in deferred payments, through the depreciation or 
appreciation of the metals, due to changes occurring in the 
meantime in production, etc." 

Sir John Lubbok is a distinguished banker in 
London. He has published a work on money, 
in which he says: 

"It may be doubted v/hether any S3^stem of convertible 
paper currency can be devised, consistent with profits to the 
issuers, which is not exposed in extreme cases to the dan-* 
ger of suspension; and when this danger is apprehended, 
all attempts fail to estimate the injury which the country 
suffers." 



1 88 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The truth of Mr. Lubbok's statement is veri- 
fied by the entire history of the specie basis 
system. It is impossible to devise one, which 
will not bring disaster upon the country, such 
that '* all attempts fail to estimate the injury 
which the country suffers." 

When the balance of trade is in our favor, 
specie flows into our country, gives us more 
money, and business revives, as it did, for 
instance, in 1880. But when the balance of 
trade turns against us, specie leaves the coun- 
try. This makes our volume of money smaller, 
lowers prices, and brings hard times. 

The following is from the Bankers' Magazine^ 
November, 1873, page 351 : 

*' There have been times in every country when the pa- 
per currency was practically convertible into coin at par, 
but this state of finance has been exceptional; and has, 
in every case, been followed by a suspension of specie pay- 
ments. It has been demonstrated by experience that a pe- 
riod of specie payments is followed by a suspension of spe- 
cie payments." 

The above is a complete admission of the 
bankers, through their own organ, of the utter 
worthlessness of a specie basis, or mixed cur- 
rency system. 

Gold and silver are commodities, and are 
frequent subjects of speculation. Men buy and 



AS A NATION. - 1 89 

sell them, send their price up and down, which 
sometimes results in great suffering to the 
whole world. The Bankers Magazine for 
August, 1876, page 82, in reference to the ef- 
fect of Germany buying and coining a large 
amount of gold, says : 

**One effect of this German pressure upon the gold 
market has been to give a sudden check to that deprecia- 
tion of gold which has been slowly developed since the 
gold discoveries of 1848. This depreciation has not only- 
been checked, but it has been followed by a contrary move- 
ment upward. At present gold is appreciating just as it 
was appreciating in the decade which closed with the panic 
of 1847, but with more spasmodic activity. Now, it has 
always been observed in the industrial history of Europe, 
that when gold appreciates trade suffers. Material progress 
is retarded, and financial enterprise is more or less para- 
lyzed. It is, indeed, a familiar law of finance that the ap- 
preciation of gold has an active tendency to produce busi- 
ness perturbation ; hence it is argued by some economists 
that we need not look further than to this law for an ade- 
quate explanation of the stagnation of business which pre- 
vails all over the world. What is certain is that this law 
may claim a place among the more conspicuous of the nu- 
merous causes to which the universal depression of industry 
and productive power in Europe is due. * * As gold is 
now without doubt tending upward in its relative value, 
many persons who have intelligently held to the theory of 
the gold standard, have begun to ask themselves whether 
gold is fit to be the sole standard of monetary value for the 
commercial world, and whether the fall in the price of sil- 
ver is not in part caused by the appreciation of gold." 



190 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The above may be considered proof positive 
of the treachery of gold as money. Why will 
the people leave their prosperity and happiness 
in the hands of the gold-gambling despots at 
home and* abroad? 

John Thompson, a prominent banker in New 
York, in a speech, delivered before an assem- 
blage of bankers, which met at Niagara Falls, 
in August, 1 88 1, said: 

"The most important sign of a coming panic and revul- 
sion is to be found in our trade balances with foreign na- 
tions. As over-prosperity has been hugely augmented by 
the importation of gold, so when the flow of the precious 
metal is from us, distrust will inspire contraction, and con- 
traction will lead directly to* inability to pay. Money not 
only becomes scarce, but it is absolutely gone." 

What more proof do you want of the total 
unreliability of specie, as money, than the 
above statement of Mr. Thompson? It is a 
positive declaration, by a very prominent 
banker and goldite, that, when the balance of 
trade is against us, specie not only becomes 
scarce, but is absolutely gone. He further 
states that, when specie is flowing from us, 
V' distrust will inspire contraction, and contrac- 
tion will lead directly to inability to pay." You, 
fellow-citizens, know what results follow : awful 
distress overtakes the people, and they can not 



AS A NATION. I9I 

pay their debts ; at the same time money sharks 
are foreclosing their mortgages, and gathering 
in the people's property. 

"But/* say you, "if we cease to use specie 
as money, how shall we settle our balances 
with foreign nations?'* 

How often I have heard this question asked. 
Indeed, it Is rather a favorite question with the 
bulllonists. They usually ask it, and then say 
to me: 

** If this country was a China, all walled in, and 
we had no trade with foreign nations, we could 
assent to your theory of money. But how shall 
we settle our*balances with foreign nations ?'* I 
answer: Settle them with gold and silver bul- 
lion, precisely as we do now. Our silver dollars 
and gold Eagles are weighed and go as bullion 
— as commodities — In other countries. In other 
countries they pay no attention to the stamp on 
our money. Now, if the product of our mines 
was all in bars, and used in that form, In our 
foreign trade, it would not enter Into circulation 
here, and enlarge the volume of money, and 
send prices up, when the balance of trade is in 
our favor, and leave the country, contract the 
volume of money, send prices down, and bring 
disaster, when the balance of trade is against 
us, and thus keep business so continually un- 



192 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

settled as to defy the' best business talent on 
earth to succeed, unless he is dealing in money, 
and, as the saying is, knows the ropes. 

These arguments are irrefraglble. The mon- 
ey-sharks may ridicule them, but they can not 
answer them. 

Discarding the use of specie as money, will 
not lose to the country the benefits arising from 
the development of our gold and silver mines, 
though Shylock would have the people believe it 
otherwise. Gold and silver can be used, in our 
trade with foreign nations, with benefit to the 
country ; but they are ruinous as a circulating 
medium, as history clearly demonstrates. 

But the goldltes will cling, with death-like 
tenacity, to the specie basis system, for at least 
three important reasons. 

First. It enables them to draw interest on 
seven or eight dollars of the people's money for 
every one of their own invested. 

Second. It enables them to control the vol- 
ume of money; and, in this way, they also 
control the priqe of labor and all its products. 

Third. By controlling the vast business In- 
terest of the country, through the specie basis 
system, they control largely the voting masses, 
and shape the policy of the nation in the inter- 
ests of centralization. 



AS A NATION. 1 93 

Think you they will, willingly, yield a power 
so vast and absolute ? 

*'But," say you, '*I like specie for change." 

Very well; if you prefer metal for small 
change, have the money value stamped on 
some cheaper material than silver, so that it 
will not leave the country to pay balances, and 
thus shrink our volume of money, send prices 
down, and bring disaster upon the people. 
Would that not be sensible? 

But, methinks, your metallic change would 
go begging ; for, in my judgment, this country 
never had anything to use for change which, on 
the whole, was as convenient as the scrip, which 
has now been replaced with chunks of metal, 
which are heavy to carry, and can not be trans- 
mitted through the malls without great expense 
and much inconvenience. 

SHOULD SPECIE LEAVE THE COUNTRY, WOULD IT 
HARM US? 

One more argument, which the gold gam- 
blers urge, against an exclusive paper currency, 
is that it will drive all the specie out of the 
country. 

Well, suppose it did, what of it? 

It leaves us anyway when the balance of 
trade is against us, and when there is war, or 
danger of one, or any sudden scare, it hides. 
13— D. 



194 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

But would anybody be hurt by its leaving 
the country? ''Why, yes," says Shylock, *' it 
would ruin the nation." What demagoguery ! 
The gold -gamblers have told the people that 
our proposed system of money was like the 
French assignats, the John Law money, the 
Continental money, and many other lies about 
finance, to keep them from investigating the 
subject. But they have told none more silly 
than that about the effects of specie leaving 
the country. The same story was told Dr. 
Franklin, and what did he say in reply? He 
said, **if specie, leaving the country can ruin it, 
it is ruined now; for the specie is all gone." 
The balance of trade v/as then against the 
Colonies, in favor of England, and the country 
was drained of its specie and the people were 
without money. Industry was paralyzed. The 
patriotic Franklin, in spite of Shylock, v/as in- 
strumental in giving the people a paper money 
which did not rest on a specie basis, but which 
gave them such full and continued prosperity 
as they had never known under the reign of 
specie. Then we know that, during our late 
civil war, and indeed for years after, we had no 
specie. Yet, while the volume of paper money 
was large, this people prospered as they never 
prospered before, nor since, and as they never 



AS A NATION. 1 95 

will again, till the volume of money is restored 
to what It ought to be. It requires a vast 
amount of that rascally commodity called cheek, 
to enable a man to assert that if specie leaves* 
this country it will ruin It. when the most prosper- 
ous period this nation ever enjoyed was when we 
did not use specie at all. Had not the history of 
other nations demonstrated the total unfitness of 
the so called precious metals for money, our late 
war would have demonstrated that unfitness. 
When they were most wanted, they could not 
be found. Why do the people bother with a 
money which serves them so imperfectly, in 
times of peace, and hides away from them en- 
tirely in time of war? Why do they not adopt 
the money which served them nobly, in the 
hour of their most urgent necessity ? To talk 
about the unfitness of paper money, when it 
carried us through that dreadful season of peril 
and war, when specie had fied across the sea, 
or was concealed and could not be coaxed from 
its hiding place, is to exhibit a deplorable Igno- 
rance, lack of common sense, or a wonderful 
capacity for reckless lying. 

The money kings have spent large sums to 
make the people believe that only gold and 
silver can be made money, and that the money 
value of money is determined by its commer- 



196 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTII^G 

cial value; that is, its weight and fineness. 
This pretense of the money power is without 
a shadow of foundation, as the following his- 
tory of our financial experience, as a nation 
will show: 

In 1 86 1 and 1862, the Government issued 
sixty millions treasury notes, payable on de- 
mand. Now, these notes had all the power 
that the promise of redemption could give 
them; yet they depreciated in value, and in 
Volume XI, page 743, of the edidon of the 
Americayi CyclopcEdia, published in 1875, with 
regard to those demand notes I find the fol- 
lowing : 

"There were instances of the soldiers having to submit 
to the loss of a discount, on those notes for pay, of from 
4 to 20 per cent, in the District of Columbia." 

Now, why were those notes not at par with 
gold? I answer: Because they were not a 
legal tender, and nobody was obliged to re- 
ceive them in payment of debts. ^ For that 
reason, and for no other, they were not as 
good as gold for the purposes for which money 
is used. On the other hand, gold coin was a 
legal tender, and creditors were obliged to 
receive it in payment of debts ; hence its supe- 
riority as money at that time. 

Here the gold gambler steps in, and says: 



AS A NATION. 1 97 

** It was not the legal tender quality that made 
gold better than the treasury notes at that 
time, but it was the commercial value it con- 
tained " But the truth is, it was not the com- 
mercial value, it was the legal tender quality — 
the debt paying power — given it by law, which 
made gold the better money at that time. 
Now, here are two opinions. Which is right? 
The latter opinion is right; and here is the 
proof: While those sixty million treasury notes 
were at a discount of twenty per cent., Con- 
gress passed a law making them a full legal 
tender ; and from that hour they were at par 
with gold, and were bought and sold to pay 
duties, the same as gold. 

Ther,e was just the same intrinsic value in 
those notes the day before Congress made 
'them a legal tender as there was afterward ; 
yet they were not worth as much by twenty 
cents on the dollar. Did not the law add that 
twenty per cent, to the value of those notes ? 
If it did not, what did? This one fact, well 
considered, will explode Shylock's whole theory 
in respect to the value of money. 

OUR DEMAND NOTES IN EUROPE. 

But how was it with the sixty millions of 
legal tenders in Europe? Now, what says 



198 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

your own common sense in regard to this mat- 
ter? Does not your reason tell you that any 
kind of money that would pay duties, and pay 
any debt that could be paid with gold, in the 
United States, would be just as good as gold 
in Europe, less the cost of exchange, which is 
very trifling? Those legal tenders went to 
Europe the same as gold, and were just as 
good as gold there, less the cost of exchange. 
Why should they not be? Europeans doing 
business with this Government, or the citizens 
of this Government, could use them in their 
business to pay duties, and for all purposes 
for which gold is used. The value of money 
in a foreign country is determined by its pur- 
chasing power at home. If it will purchase 
all that gold will purchase at home, it will 
do the same abroad. Those sixty millions of 
full legal tenders would purchase gold in New 
York, dollar for dollar. 

The London merchant would receive them at 
par, of course, for the very good reason that a 
bill of exchange that is good for its face value, 
in gold, in New York, is good for its face value, 
in gold, in Europe, and vice versa. No sooner 
is the above proposition stated than its truth 
and force is felt. More than nine-tenths of 
the business between countries is done with 



AS A NATION. 1 99 

bills of exchange, and not by shipping money 
back and forth. 

The enormous prices that have been paid for 
gold from time to time is due to the fact that 
government' has discriminated in its favor, by 
giving it the legal tender quality, and withhold- 
ing it (the legal tender quality) from other 
kinds of currency. This is proven by the fol- 
lowing figures, which I take from a speech de- 
livered in Congress, in 1874, by the Hon. John 
A. Logan, of Illinois, which speech is to be 
found in the Appendix to the Congressional 
Record for that year. It was in Logan's better 
days. It was before he went over to the money 
power. I will give his remarks accompanying 
the figures. In reference to the arguments 
presented by Shylock's hirelings, he said : 

*'No, sir ; the price of gold is regulated just as the price 
of any other article of merchandise — hy the supply and de- 
mand. It is needed for but two purposes — to pay interest on 
the public debt, and pay duties on imports. I have la- 
bored pretty hard for a few days past to get the facts and 
figures to verify every proposition as far as I can, and I 
have here the figures showing the price of gold from Jan- 
uary, 1865, down to January, 1874: 



200 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Date. Price. Difference per cent. 

1865. January, $234.1-2 

May, 128.1-2 Fall, $106 

October, 149 Else, 20.1-2 \ 

1866. March, 136.1-2 Fall, 12.1-2 
April, 125 Fall, 11.1-2 
May, 141.1-2 Rise, 16.1-2 
June, 167.3-4 Eise, 26.1-2 
September, 143.1-4 Fall, 24.1-2 
December, 131.1-4 Fall, 12 

1867. September, 146.3-8 Eise, 15.1-8 
December, 133 Fall, 13.3-8 

1868. August, 150 Eise, 17 
November, 132.1-8 Fall, 17.7-8 

1869. May, 144.3-8 Eise, 24.1-2 
December, 119.1-4 Fall, 24.1-2 

1870. January, 123.1-4 Eise, 4 
March, 110.1-4 Fall, 13 
July, 122.3-4 Eise, 12.1-2 

1871. September, 115.5-8 Eise, 5.1-2 
December, 108.3-8 Fall, 7 

1872. August, 115.5-8 Eise, 7.1-4 
December, 111.3-8 Fall, 4.1-2 

1873. April, 119.1-4 Eise, 7.3-4 
September, 114 Fall, 5.1-2 ' 
October, 108 Fall, 6 

1874. January, 111 Eise, 3 

"Thus it will be seen that the price of gold has been on 
a sliding scale downward from 1865 to the present day, 
and during the crisis and during the issuance of a portion of the 
reserve of greenbacks^ it has been lower than at any time 
since the date first mentioned. By examining this table 
you will find that the variations in the price of gold 



AS A NATION. 20Ix 

AEE NOT REGULATED BY THE AMOUNT OF CURRENCY IN 

ANY WAY WHATEVER, BUT AKE REGULATED BY 
THE TIME OF PAYMENT OF DUTIES AND IN- 
TEREST AND ACCORDING TO THE BULLS AND 
BEARS OF NEW YORK, WITHOUT ANY REFER- 
ENCE WHATEVER TO THE GREENBACKS OR 
THE CURRENCY, THE AMOUNT GREAT OR 
SMALL." 

Mr. Logan was right In saying that figures, 
given in his table (which we find to be correct) 
prove, beyond all question, that the price of gold 
was not regulated by the amount of greenbacks 
or currency in circulation, but by the time of the 
payment of interest and duties, and according to 
the bulls and bears of Wall street who had 
pov^rer to raise or lower it at will. 

V\/hat should make the price of gold go up 
26 cents in June, 1866, fifteen months after the 
war v/as over, and the next September fall 24 
cents? Why should it rise 17 cents in August, 
1868, and then fall 17 y-S cents the next Novem- 
ber? Why should it fall 7 cents in December, 
1871, and rise 7 1-4 in August, 1872? Why 
should it require more greenbacks to purchase 
one hundred dollars in gold in 1872, than it did 
in 187 1 ? There is but one answer: The owners 
of gold combined and raised the price. During 
the war they could make a confiding people 
believe that, after a battle had gone against us. 



202 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

they must charge a higher price for gold ; but 
in 1872, they had no such excuse. It then be- 
came self-evident that they controlled the mar- 
ket. But had the greenback been made a legal 
tender for duties on imports and interest on the 
public debt, there would have been no market 
for their gold, and consequently no premium. 

When a demand is created for gold by leg- 
islation, as was done in this country by the ex- 
ception clause in the greenback, the price will 
go up ; but, should the nations which now make 
gold coin a legal tender, demonetize it, and na 
longer oblige the people to receive it in pay- 
ment of debt, its price would fall very low and 
the demand for gold would largely cease, and 
the same would be true of silver. 

I realize the importance of this proposition 
in this discussion ; for if it be true, and we can 
get the people to understand it, the belief 
which a cruel money power has instilled into 
their minds, that the so-called precious metals 
are money without the fiat of the Government, 
and possess the same intrinsic value at all 
times, without regard to law, will vanish and 
they will begin to doubt, not only the sincerity 
of their leaders, but the soundness of their 
monetary system. 

That it is true, here is the proof. I copy 



AS A NATION. 203 

from the American Cyclopcsdia same ed,, vol. 
xi.. page 735 : 

"After the discovery of gold in California and Australia, 
the economists of Europe predicted a great decline in its 
value. Prominent among these was M. Chevalier. Un- 
der the influence of the teachings of the economists, the 
Netherlands, Belgium and Germany all demonetized gold, 
and adopted silver as the only legal tender, at a fixed rate. 
In those countries gold only circulated as a commodity, 
subject to daily fluctuations in value ; and, as a consequence, 
deprived as it was of legal support (legal tender quality) 
as money, it was but little used." 

Here we have the proof from the highest 
authority. As soon as gold was deprived of 
its legal tender quality in those countries, it 
was not only subject to daily fluctuations in 
value, but it went almost entirely into disuse. 

The same writer further says: 

*'In India, prior to 1835, gold and silver were both a 
legal tender. But silver became the exclusive one. In 
1841 the Indian government authorized gold mohars to be 
received, when oflered, for taxes. In December, 1852, 
however, this was prohibited, for fear that all payments 
might be made to them in gold, which was the cheaper 
metal, while they might be obliged to make all payments 
in silver, which was the only legal tender." 

Here It is again. In India, in 1852, gold, not 
being a legal tender, became cheaper than 
silver, and the Government would not receive 
it for taxes, lest its creditors might demand 



204 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

silver, which, being a legal tender, was the 
more valuable. Further on, in the same ar- 
ticle, the cyclopaedia says: 

"On the testimony of Thomas Baring, we are assured 
that it was found impossible during the crisis of 1847 in 
London -to raise any money whatever on a sum of £60,000 
of silver." 

Notice again : Sixty thousand pounds ster- 
ling of silver, if coined into dollars, would 
amount, to three hundred thousand dollars; 
yet, V\/ith all that vast amount of silver, no 
money whatever could be raised. And why? 
Because silver was not a legal tender in Eng- 
land, and consequently not money. You could 
get silver with money, but you could not get 
money with silver. 

So much for one of the precious metals. 
Now, could gold be affected this way? The 
same writer, on same page says : 

"During a similar crisis in Calcutta, in 1864, it was 
equally impossible to raise even a single rupee (46 cents) on 
£20,000 of gold. The former was not a legal tender above 
forty shillings, while the latter was nbt for any sum what- 
ever." 

Could anything be more conclusive than this? 
In Calcutta, in 1864, gold was not a legal ten- 
der; and twenty thousand pounds sterling, 
(equivalent in our money to $100,000), not 



AS A NATION. 205 

being a legal tender there, would not purchase 
a single rupee (forty-six cents.) 

I will add the following, from the same 
author: 

"About 1855, Holland adopted silver as tlie only legal 
tender, at a fixed value, but attempted to coin gold having 
no 'such value, this only being regulated by the market 
price from day to day. After 200,000 florins (about 
^80,000) had been coined the demand entirely ceased." 

Here we have a case where the attempt to 
make gold serve as money, without the legal 
quality, was a failure. It died. It lacked the 
inspiration of law. It went out of use alto- 
gether. Do such undeniable historic facts and 
common sense arguments need comment to 
prove the position I have taken? When the 
government of Holland put its fiat upon those 
pieces of gold, and said, *' These are legal 
tender for all debts, public and private/* they 
sprang into life, and went on their way through 
the realm, performing the functions of money. 
Holland has since demonetized silver, and it 
has now gone out of use there. 

Do you not perceive that, should the govern- 
ments of the world demonetize gold, gold 
watches, rings and fillings for teeth would be 
much cheaper than at present? Do you not 



206 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

see that law makes and unmakes money, and 
regulates its value? 

On page 311, American Almanac for 1878. 1 
find the following, taken from the report of the 
Director of the Mint, 1877 : 

OUE GOLD EAGLE AND OTHER COINS. 

"Eagle, $10. — Authorized to be coined, Act of April 2, 
1792; weight, 270 grains; fineness, 916f. Weight changed, 
Act of June 28, 1834, to 258 grains." 

Now, what makes the gold eagle of 258 
grains pay just as much debt as the old eagle 
of 270 grains? Is it not the fiat of the gov- 
ernment — the very power that made those 
eagles money in the first place? " But hold! " 
says James G. Blaine and the bank money 
men: "God made gold money;" and Robert 
G. Ingersoll, in speaking of Blaine's fitness for 
the Presidency, and the demands of the people, 
said: 

"The people demand a man who knows enough to know 
that all the money must be made, not by law, but by 
labor." 

Well, here is what the Supreme Court of the 
United States thinks about it. That court, in 
the celebrated legal tender case (Wallace's Su- 
preme Court Reports, pages 48-9), decides as 
follows: 



AS A NATION. 207 

"The eagles coined after 1834 were not money untIl 
THEY were authorized BY LAW. And had they been 
coined before, without a law fixing their value, they could 
no more have paid a debt than uncoined bullion, or cotton, 
or wheat." 

Here you have history, the Supreme Court, 
and your own common sense, against Blaine, 
Ingersoll & Co. According to the Supreme 
Court and your own common sense, the gold 
eagle, even after it had been coined, would not 
have been money without the authority of law. 
Did labor make that eagle money, or did law 
make it money? The government must put its 
fiat upon it before it can become money. When 
the government does this, it fixes its value as 
money. In 1792 the government fixed the 
value of 270 grains of gold at ten dollars. In 
1834, it fixed the value of 258 grains (twelve 
grains less) at ten dollars. In 1792 the gov- 
ernment fixed the value of 135 grains of gold 
at five dollars. In 1834 it changed it to 129 
grains. 

Here it will be seen that the government has 
changed the weight and fineness of the differ- 
ent denominations of gold money from time to 
time. But its money value has remained the 
same. The law has changed its intrinsic value, 
but has not changed its money value or debt- 
paying power. 



208 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Now, let us see how it has been with silver. 
In 1792, the Government fixed the money val- 
ue of 416 grains of silver at one dollar. In 
1873, it authorized the coinage of half-dollars, 
containing 192^^ grains of silver. Thus, two 
of those half dollars contained more than 30 
grains less silver than the dollar of 1792, and 
yet they had the same money value. The fiat of 
the Government made 380 grains of silver a 
dollar, in 1873, ^-s it had 416 grains in 1792. 
The thing we call our trade dollar contains 42a 
grains of silver, and its value varies. It will 
usually pass at the banks for ninety cents. 
Why does it not pass for a hundred cents? 
Because the fiat of the Government is not up- 
on it — it is not a legal tender for debts. It 
passes to whoever has a mind to receive it at 
its bullion value ; it has no money value what- 
ever. At best, one hundred of them will pay 
only ninety dollars of debt. Our standard 
dollar contains only 41 2 J^ grains, or yyi grains 
less silver than the trade dollar; yet one hund- 
red of them will pay ten dollars more of debt, 
or purchase ten per cent, more of intrinsic val- 
ue in any purchasable commodity, than the 
trade dollar. Now, how is it that the standard 
dollar, with a commercial or intrinsic value of 
80 cents, will purchase ten per cent, more of 
intrinsic value than the trade dollar, containing 



AS A NATION. 209 

90 cents of intrinsic value? In other words, 
what causes the dollar containing the most 
silver to purchase less? and the one containing 
less silver to purchase more? There is but 
one answer, and it is plain and simple: the 
Government has put its fiat upon 80 cents 
worth of silver and fixed its money value 
twenty cents above its bullion, or intrinsic val- 
ue. Now, one capable of thinking once, can 
see that the same power that made 80 cents 
worth of silver bullion worth a dollar as money, 
can fix the same money value upon ten cents' 
worth of bullion, or upon one cent's worth, or 
upon any other commodity or thing capable of 
receiving its stamp. 

Our nickel is a good illustration of this prin- 
ciple. Here the government left gold and sil- 
ver altogether. It took 75 per cent, of nickel 
and 25 per cent, of copper, and compounded 
or mixed them ; and from about 1 7 cents' worth 
of this compound of copper and nickel it m.ade 
twenty five-cent nickels, and fixed the money 
value at one dollar. Here the fiat of the Gov- 
ernment added Z'^ cents, money value, to 17 
cents of intrinsic value, and the result is one 
dollar in money. In one of our five cent nick- 
els there is less than one cent of intrinsic val- 
ue; yet, as money, it is worth ^v^ cents. 
14— D. 



2IO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

Now, was that copper and nickel money be- 
fore the Government placed its fiat or stamp 
upon it? No, sir; as the Supreme Court has 
well said of the gold eagle, it was no more 
money, and could no more have paid a debt 
than copper ore or wheat. 

Was Robert IngersoU right in saying that 
only labor can make money? — or was the Su- 
preme Court right in saying that only law can 
make money? And will it be pretended that, 
if the Government had stamped the nickel ten 
cents, instead of five, it would not have been 
worth just as much to use for money as our ten- 
cent silver piece? It would have paid just 
as much debt, and the debt-paying power of 
money determines its purchasing power. The 
nickel is a legal tender for a certain amount of 
debt. The butcher receives it because it will 
pay the farmer for beeves ; the farmer receives 
it because it is a legal tender for his grocer's 
bill ; the grocer receives it because it is a legal 
tender to the wholesale merchant behind him; 
the borrower receives it, not because of its in- 
trinsic value, but because it is a legal tender 
for money borrowed; the money-loaner re- 
ceives it because he can loan it, dollar for dol- 
lar, and use it to pay his taxes to the Govern- 
ment; the producer of wealth parts with prop- 



AS A NATION. 211 

erty for it — not because of Its Intrinsic value, 
but because he can use it as a medium by which 
he can exchange what he produces for what he 
wants. To 'illustrate: The farmer wants a^ 
harness, but the harnessmaker does not want 
corn, so the farmer can not purchase a harness 
with corn directly; but he can take his corn to 
the miller and exchange it for money, and with 
the money he can purchase the harness. The 
harnessmaker receives the money without think- 
ing or caring whether it is nickels, with 17 cents 
of intrinsic value, or gold dollars, containing 90 
cents of intrinsic value (our gold dolljar is only 
90 per cent. gold). He only cares to know that 
it is a legal tender to his employe for labor and 
to his landlord for rent, and for all purposes for 
which money is used ; he receives twenty nick- 
els for a dollar because it will pay a dollar of 
debt; and because it will pay a dollar of debt 
it will purchase a dollar's worth of any pur- 
chasable commodity. In short, every dollar is 
a fiat dollar. It matters not whether it be com- 
posed of gold, silver or leather, it is not a dol- 
lar until it is made so by law ; it is not money 
until it receives the fiat of the Government that 
issues it, and then it is fiat money. Hence, all 
money is fiat money. 

Now, is this not plainly so? Can you not see 



212 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that the capitalists are misleading the people? 
Think you that Blaine, etc., do not know that 
money is a creation of law, and not of labor? 
Well they know that money pays debts not 
because of its intrinsic value, but because of 
its legal value. 

Hear the Supreme Court again, in the same 
decision, on page already referred to. It says: 

*'By the obligation of a contract to pay money is to pay 
that which law shall recognize as money when the payment 
is to be made. If there is.^nything settled by decision it 
is this, and we do not understand it to be controverted. 
No one ever doubted that a debt of one thousand dollars, 
contracted before 1834, could be paid with one hundred 
eagles coined after that year, though they contained no 
more gold than ninety-four eagles before the contract was made, 
and this is not because of the intrinsic value of the coin, 
but because of its legal value." 

My countrymen, the above is a decision of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, a 
majority of whose Judges are Republican. 

Now, the fact that the leading papers and 
speakers of the old parties have not placed 
these facts before you in their true light, ought 
to excite your suspicion. Can you doubt that 
they are laboring to keep you in ignorance ? 

Now hear Judge Joel Tiffany, of New York, 
one of America's ablest jurists, who, in his 



AS A NATION. 213 

Treatise on Government and Constitutional 
Law, says: 

JUDGE TIFFANY ON COINING MONEY. 

"To coin money and regulate its value as an act of sov- 
ereignty involves the right to determine what shall be taken and 
received as money, at what measure and price it shall be taken; 
and what shall be its effect when passed or tendered in pay- 
ment, or satisfaction of all legal obligations. * * Gov- 
ernment, like the Spartan law-giver, may put its stamp 
upon leather, and make that currency. And so long as it can 
fully provide against the counterfeiting of the same, and 
thus can regulate the quantity in use, it can give to its stamp 
upon leather the same money value as if put upon gold or 
silver, or any other material. Thus, government may put 
its royal or sovereign stamp upon paper, affixing its money 
value; and, if it limit the quantity, and fully provide against 
counterfeiting of it, it will have the same currency value 
as gold or silver, or any other substance. Much has been 
said about paper money, and gold, silver and copper money ; 
but all such language is deceptive. There is no such tiling^ 
legally, as gold and silver money, and paper money. Money, 
as the measure of price or value, is the sovereign authority 
impressed upon and attached to that which is capable of 
taking and retaining the impress of that authority. It is 
the recognized presence of sovereignty, in the market and in the 
court, applying the measure and determining the equality 
of exchanges, between subject and subject, peasant and 
prince, between crown and people. 

''As a medium of exchange, or a means to an end, it 
has no value but the sovereign will recorded upon its face ; 
and, in respect to its use, its vf^ue is as unchangeable as 
the authority that created it. * * Its value being fixed 



214 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

by the will of the government, and not by the intrinsic 
qualities of that upon which it is impressed, legally, it 
can not vary. Its relative proportions to other things may 
disturb their relative values, but its legal value stands fixed 
{ind immutable, while the price of commodities is measured 
by its rise and fall. The philosopher can change the reason, 
but he can not change the laws. * * That upon which 
the stamp is placed is called coin ; the act of stamping is 
called coinage, and, as the practice of all governments 
using currency has been generally to place its money stamp 
upon metal of some kind, the common idea of coin is, that 
it must be metal, as distinguished from other substances. 
But this rests solely in the dictum of the sovereign or sov- 
ereignty, whether the coin shall be metal, leather, parch- 
ment, paper, or any other substance, as a question of expe- 
diency of political economy, and not authority. 

*'The authority selecting the substance to coin, if wise, 
will consider the fitness, the adaptation, the economy, the 
necessity for the public use. There is a need in every so- 
ciety for a medium of exchange, for money; it is a public 
necessity as well as private, and should be provided in 
such a way as to subserve that pubhc as well as private use. 
The United States, as a nation, has the same authority to 
coin money and regulate its value as other sovereign na- 
tions, and ther^ is no earthly authority to call it to account 
for so doing. In instituting the General Government for 
administering its authority in respect to all subjects enu- 
merated in the Constitution, and for the purposes therein 
named, it conferred upon Congress unlimited authority to 
coin money and regulate its value ; that is, it committed 
the whole subject of creating and regulating the legal cur- 
rency to Congress; so that Congress, as a national legisla- 
ture, is invested with plenary powers upon this subject. 
It was the intention of the people that this power should 



AS A NATION. 215 

"be exercised in siicli a manner as to make the currency ad- 
equate to any emergency that could arise. That is com- 
mon SENSE, FOR, OTHERWISE, THE MONEY POWER WOULD 

ALWAYS HAVE THE NATION BY THE THROAT. The Gov- 
ernment was instituted, and the powers were conferred that 
they might be used in such a manner as to make every de- 
partment of administration contribute to the declared end 
the people had in view, to- wit: to the establishment of 
justice, to provide for the common defense, and promoting 
the general welfare. The pretense for attempting to re- 
strict the powers over subjects committed to its jurisdiction, 
based upon the assumption that Congress is a body separate 
from the people, is without foundation. The people are as 
eminently and potentially present in Congress, to admin- 
ister their own authority by legislation as they were in the 
convention that formed their Government and established 
the mode of its administration. Therefore they toay be as 
safely intrusted with the exercise of their authority to coin 
money and regulate its value as they were to institute the 
Government and ordain by whom that power to coin 
money, etc., should be exercised." 

The above quotation from Judge Tiffany Is 
in perfect accord with the Supreme Court, and 
avows the same self-evident truth, viz: that 
money is a creation of law, and its value fixed 
by law. 

If Judge Tiffany is not right In his conclu- 
sions, then our fathers were in error, and made 
an egregious mistake when they placed the 
following clause in the Constitution of the 
United States : 



2l6 WHITKER ARE WE DRIFTING 

** Congress shall have power to coin money and regulate 
the value thereof." 

Now, what power is conferred upon Congress 
by the v/ords "to coin money and regulate the 
value thereof?" It can not be the power to say 
how much of other kinds of property a given 
sum of money shall purchase; because that 
would be to fix the quantity of wheat, or other 
commodity, to be sold for a dollar. It means 
that Congress shall have power, by a majority 
vote, the President coinciding, to place the 
Government stamp, or fiat, upon leather, paper, 
or any other material, and make it money, and 
fix its standard value, just as it has done in the 
case of nickel and other inferior metals. How 
else could Congress regulate the value of 
money? As I have before said, it can not enact 
how much wheat a dollar shall purchase; but 
it can determine how much debt paying power 
a certain piece of money shall possess. In 
this way, and in no other. Congress can, and 
does, regulate the value of money. 

It would seem that nothing more is needed 
to convince the thoughtful that money is a cre- 
ation of law, .and its value fixed by law. I will 
close my argument on this point by quoting 
John Sherman, the late Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. We clip the following from his campaign 



AS A NATION. 21 7 

speech in Ohio in 1879, as published by the 
Chicago Tribune and other Republican papers : 

*'It (the government) may coin money and regulate its 
Talue. It may call ten grains of silver a dollar, and make 
it so ; or it may coin pot-metal into dollars." 

If human testimony, history and experience 
prove anything, then it is proven that the gov- 
ernment can put its sovereign stamp upon any- 
thing capable of receiving the impress, and 
make it money. Mark you, I have not here 
contended that the value of money relative to 
commodities can not be changed; it can be — 
money can be made cheap or dear, high or low, 
by changing the quantity in circulation. But 
that does not change its money value — it 
changes only its relative value. A dollar will 
pay a dollar of debt, whether it be cheap or 
dear. When there is a large volume of money 
in circulation, more dollars can be obtained for 
a given amount of labor, and debts are easier 
paid. When the volume of money in circula- 
tion is small, it becomes dear, hard to get, and, 
of course, it is harder to pay debts. 

The followhig from the Afnericaii Cyclopaedia 
will be useful in this connection. It sustains 
my position. It contains the opinion of Aris- 
totle, and much other valuable history, on the 



2l8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

subject of money. It gives the true definition 
of money. Read it, and then ask yourself 
how the pretense of modern Shylocks, that 
only gold and silver can be money, looks, in 
the light of this history. (See American Cyclo- 
pcedla, vol. xi, page 735, and following): 

AiyiEEICAN CYCLOPEDIA QUOTED. 

"Money. — The currency of the realm or of the coun- 
try. The standard of payment, whether of coin, circulat- 
ing notes or any other commodity. Anything which freely 
circulates from hand to hand, as a common, acceptable me- 
dium of exchange, in any country, is, in such country, 
money, even though it cease to be such, or to possess any 
value in passing into another country. In a word, an arti- 
cle is determined to be money by reason of the performance 
by it of certain functions, without regard to its form or 
substance. * ^ Baron Storch terms money the marvel- 
ous instrument to which we are indebted for our wealth 
and civilization. Mr. Harold Rogers has said : ' Just as 
the development of language is essential to the intellectual 
growth of a people, so is a medium of exchange to civili- 
zation.' Aristotle says of it that * it exists not by 

NATURE BUT BY LAW.' 

*'How true is this doctrine, or, at least, how patent is 
the law, under a civilized government, in imparting the 
quality of acceptability for the payment of debts and the 
purchase of commodities to that which it recognizes as 
money, is clearly proved by the operations of the Bank of 
Venice during several centuries, throughout which time its 
deposits, which were never payable, but only transferable 
on the books of the bank, were at a premium over coins. 



AS A NATION. 219 

because they were the standard of payment furnished by 
the trade and used for all large transactions. Indeed, this 
bank money was that which established the money of ac- 
count and in which the value of all coins was expressed. 

*'The money of account of the Bank of Venice, undis- 
turbed for five hundred years, had no coins to correspond 
with it, and the value of all coins was expressed in it. 

^ * " Very dissimilar substances have been made to 
serve as money. The Jews, in addition to their ordinary 
money of shekels, talents and drachms of silver, had jewel 
money. Cattle was used as money in ancient Greece, and 
in Rome tin was coined by Dionysius I. And Roman and 
British tin coins are known to exist. Leaden money is now 
current in the Burman empire. Platinum was coined in 
Russia from 1828 to 1835. Pompilius, king of Rome about 
700 B. C. , made money both of wood and of leather. In 
1874, when the city of Leyden was besieged by the Span- 
iards, leather was issued. In the fifteenth century, China 
used the middle bark of a mulberry tree as money, cut 
into round pieces and stamped with the mark of the sover- 
eign. In Britain, as late as the Norman Conquest, two 
kinds of money were in use, known as living money and 
dead money. The former consisted of slaves and cattle, 
which were usually transferred with the soil, and the latter 
metal. 

*' When the South Sea Islands were discovered the na- 
tives first exchanged their products with the Europeans for 
beads or anything gaudy which was offered them, but they 
soon discovered the value of iron utensils, and they freely 
exchanged anything they had for axes, hammers and nails,! 
etc. Axes eventually were held in such estimation that 
they became a standard of payment and the basis of a 
money of account, the value of other articles being stated 
as so many axes. * * The skins of wild animals wero 



2 20 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

used as money by the ancient Russians and by some of the 
Indians on this continent. And even by the people of Il- 
linois, at an early day, raccoon and deer skins were so used. 
In 1574 quantities of pastboard were coined in Holland. 
Of the aboriginal money of the American continent, from 
the mounds in and adjoining the valley of the Mississippi, 
specimens have been obtained composed of lignite, coal, 
bone, shell, terra cotta, mica, pearl, cornelian, chalcedony, 
agate, jasper, native gold, silver, copper, lead and iron, 
which were fashioned into forms evincing considerable skill 
in art. Cocoanuts were used as money in certain parts of 
the American continent when the Europeans first visited 
it. Wampum was used by the Indians as currency, and 
about 1635, was the prevailing one among the colonists of 
Massachusetts, was a legal tender, and was even counter- 
feited. About the same time corn and beans were used. 
* * Musket balls passed for change at a farthing apiece, 
and were a legal tender for sums under one shilling. ^ ^ 
Adam Smith mentions that in Scotland about 1776 it was 
customary for workmen to carry nails as money to the bake 
shop and the ale house. Notched wood was used at one 
time in England." 

Lack of space prevents me from giving the 
whole article, or giving it in the order in which 
it is there given, but what is given, is in the 
exact words of the author, and in no case has 
the disconnection changed the meaning of a 
word or sentence. I commend the reader to a 
careful perusal' of the whole article as it appears 
in the Cyclopaedia. 

It demonstrates that money is not a creation 



AS A NATION. 221 

of labor or nature, but of law. Indeed, as the 
Supreme Court has said, ** We do not under- 
stand this to be controverted;" it is only de- 
nied by our modern Shylocks and their hire- 
lings, who, by false theories and specious pre- 
tenses, are seeking to perpetuate a system of 
money, which, if allowed to continue in this 
government, is just as sure to destroy our lib- 
erties as strychnine is to destroy human life 
when taken into the system. 

THE ADVANTAGES OF A PAPER MONEY SYSTEM. 

It would seem that a system of paper money 
would commend itself to the judgment of think- 
ing men, without the indorsement of philoso- 
phers, or political economists. But, so thor- 
oughly have the capitalists instilled into the 
minds of the people the idea that a money can 
not be good and safe without (as though it 
could with) a specie basis, and the notion, that 
none but fanatics ever dreamed of an uncon- 
vertible paper money, that I deem it well to 
quote a few more authorities to uproot the lie. 

Mr. John Twells, a prominent London banker, 
was before a Parliamentary committee, to an- 
swer questions, touching the failure of the Bank 
of England, in 1847. ^^ was questioned, and 
answered as follows : 



222 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

*' What do you consider tlie advantage of an inconverti- 
ible note, over a convertible note payable to bearer on de- 
mand? Ans. — It would prevent a drain of bullion when 
it is required for foreign trade, and it would give us what 
is very essential, a domestic currency, which is not influ- 
enced by any foreign transactions whatever. If France or 
America want gold, it ought not to interfere with our do- 
mestic currency. Our merchants and all our trade ought 
not to suffer because America wants gold. 

*' Do you think that that currency would run the risk of 
ever being depreciated in value, that is to say, that incon- 
vertible five-pound notes would not exchange for five sov- 
ereigns? Ans. — I do not know as compared with sover- 
eigns; that, I think, is of no consequence in the world! 
We want it for internal commerce, and we want it to pay 
government our taxes." 

Now, read the following from David Ricardo, 
a very prominent English writer, on finance. 

When England was at war with France, 'and 
was using an unconvertible currency for money, 
Mr. Ricardo wrote as follows: 

"A well-regulated paper currency is so great an improve- 
ment in commerce, that I should greatly regret if prejudice 
should induce us to return to a system of less utility. The 
introduction of the precious metals for the purposes of 
money may with truth be considered as one of the most 
important steps toward the improvement of commerce and 
the arts of civilized life, but it is no less true that, with the 
advance of knowledge and science, we discover that it 
would be another improvement to banish them again from 
the employment to which, during a less enlightened period, 



AS A NATION. 223 

they have been so advantageously applied. H^ * By 
limiting the quantity of coin it can be raised to any con- 
ceivable value. [Hence its value does not reside in itself, 
but in its quantity.] It is on this principle that paper 
money circulates. Though it has no intrinsic value, yet, 
by limiting its quantity, its value in exchange is as great as 
an equal quantity of coin, or of the bullion in that coin. 
^ * On these principles it will be seen that it is not 
necessary that paper money should be payable in specie to 
secure its value. * * It is evident, therefore, that if 
the government were to be the sole issuer of paper money, 
instead of borrowing it of banks, the only difference would 
be with respect to interest: — the banks would no longer 
receive interest, and the government would no longer pay it.'* 

Plainly this great thinker saw, early in the 
present century, that it was time that gold and 
silver were discarded as valueless for money. 
Gold and silver had been an improvement on 
bullets, axes, wood, and cattle, which had been 
used in a more barbarous age ; but they have 
served their time, and can not meet the de- 
mands of our greatly increased commerce and 
higher civilization. 

The following is from William S. Jevons, 
Professor of Political Economy, in the Owens 
University, England: 

"There is plenty of evidence to prove that inconvertible 
paper money, if carefully limited in quantity, can retain its 
full value. * * But there is abundance of evidence to 
prove that the value of gold has undergone extensive 



224 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

changes. Between 1789 and 1809 it fell 46 per cent., as 1 
have shown in a paper on variations in prices since 1782; 
from 1809 to 1849 it rose in value 145 per cent." 

Read the following from Scotland's great 
political economist, Professor McCulloch. He 
speaks as follows: 

**It had been supposed, previous to the suspension of the 
Bank of England in 1797, that bank notes would not cir- 
culate unless they were convertible into cash, but the event 
showed, conformable to principles that have since been 
fully explained, that this was not really the case. * ^ 
Thougl^ the notes of the Bank of England were not pub- 
licly declared to be a legal tender, they were rendered so 
in practice by being received as cash in all transactions on. 
account of the Government and of the vast majority of 
individuals. For the first three years after the suspension 
they actually bore a premium in gold." 

Hear the great Scotch author, last quoted, on 
the difference in money, issued by banking cor- 
porations, and that Issued by the Government. 
He speaks as follows: 

"As no means have been found to Kmit the supply of 
promises to pay issued by private individuals, their value, 
it is plain, could not be maintained. But it is otherwise 
with the promissory notes issued by the State or by a com- 
pany acting under its control. The quantity of such notes 
may be effectually limited ; and we have seen that, when 
this is the case, intrinsic worth is not necessary to a cur- 
rency, and that by properly limiting the supply of paper, 
declared to be legal tender, its value may be sustained on 
a par with gold or any other commodity." 



AS A NATION. 225 

Here is a word from the same author on the 
doing away with specie, both as money and as 
a basis for money: 

"Being issued in such quantities as to preserve its value 
relatively to the mass of circulating commodities nearly ' 
equal, the precious metals might be entirely dispensed with, 
not only as a circulating medium, but also as a standard to 
which to refer the value of such paper money." 

More authority on this point seems superflu- 
ous; but I am determined, so far as authorities 
can do it, to uproot the old lie so often and so 
continuously told by the bulHonists, viz: that 
paper money, issued in reasonable amounts, 
will depreciate unless it has specie for a basis. 

The following is from Bonamy Price, of En- 
gland, Professor of Political Economy at Ox- 
ford: 

"Experience has proved that it (inconvertible paper 
money) need not suffer any depreciation in value. * ^ 
The public has a certain definite want for notes to use in 
the daily operation of buying and selling. It is plain that 
the prohibition to pay the notes can make no difference in 
the extent of the use that exists for them ; so far as this- 
reaches, it is immaterial whether the notes will or will not 
be paid on demand. * * Paper money has a further su- 
periority of great importance over specie — its comparative 
cheapness, combined with equal efficiency." 

I will offer no more authorities to establish 
the fact that history and experience, as well as 
15— D. 



2 26 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

common sense, prove that paper money, issued 
by a responsible government, and made a full 
legal tender for debt, is the safest and best 
money imaginable. 

THE BAXK OF ENGLAND. 

Having quoted English authorities with refer- 
ence to the superiority of an unconvertible cur- 
rency (a currency not based on specie), I will 
now quote, by way of contrast, some English 
authorities on the disadvantages of a so called 
convertible currency (a currency based on spe- 
cie), as illustrated by the Bank of England. 

After the disaster of 1847, i^ England, the 
House of Lords and House of Commons ap- 
pointed a committee to inquire into the condi- 
tion of the Bank of England. 

The following testimony was given by John 
H. Palmer, at that time a director, and soon 
after made governor of the Bank of England : 

*Tt is by producing a fall in the commodities in this 
country that you correct the exchanges? Ans. — Yes; not 
only merely in that way, but you would bring capital into 
the country by a high rate of interest. 

*'Itis by interference with trade that it acts, and not 
merely by the inconvenience of the bill-holders? Ans. — It 
causes the stoppage of trade. 

"What would be the eifect upon the manufacturers and 
laborers of the country during such an operation? Ans. — 



AS A NATION. 227 

It destroys the labor of the country. At the present mo- 
ment, in the neighborhood of London, and in the manu- 
facturing districts, you can hardly move in any direction 
without hearing universal complaint of the want of em- 
ployment by the laborers of the country. 

"That you ascribe to the measures it was necessary for 
the bank to adopt in order to preserve the convertibility 
(specie payments) of its notes? Ans. — I think the present 
depressed state of labor is entirely owing to that circum- 
stance. 

* ' And the pressure of the bank produces forced sales ? 
Ans. — It stops credit, and the British merchant sells his 
goods for the purpose of meeting his private payments, and 
brings his capital to the bank at an earlier period than it 
would come in the ordinary course of business. There is 
no means of supplying the bank with gold, only through 
the diminution of the bank notes, which immediately con- 
tracts the currency, and lowers prices by increasing the 
Yalue of money." 

Is not the above testimony shocking-? The 
gist — yea, the positive statement — of the Gov- 
ernor of the Bank of England, is that when 
there is a pressure upon the bank, it must, in 
order to save itself, contract its currency, and 
thereby lower prices, increase the value ofi 
money, throw the poor laboring people out of 
employment to beg or starve, and bring terrible 
suffering upon the people. Fellow citizens, do 
you not see that the Bank of England is a des- 
pot of the most unpitying character? Read 



2 28 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the following from Mr. J. S. Lord, one of the 
most reliable English authorities on money: 

''Against the actual exhaustion of her treasure by a drain 
through the foreign exchanges, the Bank of England, un- 
der almost any circumstances, has the power to protect her- 
self; but to do this she must produce upon the money 
market a pressure ruinous from its suddenness and severity ; 
she must save herself by the destruction of all around her." 

Notice the statement here made, that the 
Bank of England can protect herself under 
almost any circumstances. This is an admis- 
sion that she can not always protect herself, 
even by bringing disaster upon the people. 
Think of it! The only show the Bank of 
England has to save itself, in a crisis, is to bring 
destruction upon the business world around her. 
Heavens, what an engine of oppression! 

To show what some of the better class of 
Englishmen think of the Bank of England, I 
will quote Mr. Sealy, of England, who in his 
work on "Coins and Currency," published at 
London in 1853, expresses the following opinion 
of the Bank of England. His statement was 
made after England changed from an uncon- 
vertible to a convertible currency: 

' ' The commerce of the country is now in the power of 
the Bank of England, as it was before the legislature. For 
legislative enactment we have substituted thej^decision of 



•AS A NATION. 229 

the Bank Parlor ; for a responsible government, composed 
of kings, queens, lords and commons, we have substituted 
an irresponsible body, composed of twenty-four directors 
and a governor and deputy-governor. To these we have 
confided the commerce of this mighty empire. Instead of 
a mercantile system supported by merchants and manufac- 
turers and agricultural interests, we have now the mone- 
tary system endangering the welfare of merchants, manu- 
facturers and agriculturists — for the benefit of the fund- 
holding classes." 

Mark Mr. Sealy's statement, that the Bank 
of England is dangerous to the welfare of 
merchants, manufacturers and the agricultural 
interests — and all this for the benefit of the 
fund-holding class, (moneyed men.) 

The same may be said of all banks. Repub- 
lican liberty can no more live in a country con- 
trolled by the banking interests, than a lamb 
can live in the fatal coils of an anaconda.- 

SPECIE RESUMPTION, 

The people uphold the present monetary 
system in the belief that they can get their 
paper currency redeemed in specie, which Is 
not the case. It is safe to say that the resump- 
tion law has placed the coin in the treasury 
beyond the reach of more than two-thirds of 
the American people, from the simple fact that 
the smallest amount redeemable is fifty dollars, 



230. WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

a sum larger than the masses can command. 
Then, too, the only place of redemption in 
specie is the sub-treasury in the City of New 
York; therefore, the distance and expense of 
reaching the place of redemption puts what- 
ever advantage there is in resumption beyond 
the reach of the laboring people. Then, how 
much specie is there in the Treasury available 
for resumption purposes? The Secretary's 
report shows that the whole amount of specie 
held in the Treasury for resumption purposes 
is only about 40 per cent, of the whole amount 
of greenbacks in circulation. 

By the way, Shylock has a very cunning 
way of stating this proposition. He tells the 
people that the National bank currency is 
redeemable in greenbacks, and the greenbacks 
redeemable in specie. And in this way he 
makes them think they see specie behind the 
paper money. 

But does that change the fact that all the 
coin there is behind the paper money amounts 
to only forty per cent, of the greenback cur- 
rency, which would make a basis of less than 
twenty per cent, of the whole paper circula- 
tion? Is it not true that one hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars in specie, is the size of 
Shylock's specie basis for about seven hundred 
u^d forty millions of paper money ? 



AS A NATION. 2^1 

What means all this talk about the National 
bank currency being redeemable in greenbacks 
and the greenbacks redeemable in specie? 
Supposing it is the law, it can not be done. As 
well make a law to dip the ocean dry with a 
pint cup. If a man stop to think once, he will 
see through the trick, and through their pre- 
tended specie basis, to the lie behind it, which 
has been concocted by Shylock to delude the 
people into the belief that they can get their 
paper money redeemed in specie. 

But how is it with the moneyed men ? 

Ah ! They have it all fixed for themselves. 
They have fifty dollars, and many times fifty. 

Should there come a crisis, they can present 
greenbacks enough for redemption at the sub- 
treasury to pocket the specie available for re- 
sumption purposes in less than one week. It 
is a rich man's resumption — what there is of it. 
It keeps the specie hoarded in the treasury, 
where the rich can pocket it; but it is beyond 
the reach of those who can least afford to lose 
their money. 

THE WAY TO MAKE PAPER MONEY EXCIIAiNGEABLE 
FOR SPECIE. 

There is only one way to make paper money 
exchangeable for specie at all times, when it 
is to be had at all, viz.: to make it full leoal 



232 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

tender. Then it will do all that specie can do, 
as money, and everybody would prefer it to 
specie. Anything that will pay a debt is ex- 
changeable for, and will purchase, everything 
that is purchasable ; because our indebtedness 
is many times greater than our whole volume 
of currency, which has created an immense de- 
mand for a debt-paying medium. Everybody 
wants it, because every one either owes a debt 
or wishes to purchase of those who do. * 

Specie is not only sure to disappear, when 
needed for redemption purposes, but is liable 
to become worthless, as I have proven from 
the American Cyclopedia. But land can never 
flee away, nor become worthless, while life has 
to be sustained with food supplied from the 
earth. 

The paper currency of the country never has 
been, nor ever will be redeemed in specie, by 
the banks, nor by the Government; but it is 
redeemed by the people every time it pays a 
debt or is exchanored for value. 

A ten -dollar bill passing from the hand of A 
may pay a debt to C, another to D, and so pass 
on from one to another, paying a debt, and 
being redeemed every time it changes hands, 
and thus it may pay a hundred dollars of in- 
debtedness, and be redeemed ten times in a 



AS A NATION. 233 

single day. I know not how much the people 
pay annually in taxes of all kinds, but probably 
more than the amount of the entire circulation 
of the country. If so, then it will be seen that 
our money is not only redeemed many times 
every year in exchanging commodities and dis- 
charging indebtedness, but is redeemed once 
every year by the Government in taxes. What 
more is needed? Such a money is always ex 
changeable for specie, when there is any specie. 
A full legal tender money issued by the Gov- 
ernment, redeemable in taxes, and loaned to 
the people on real estate security, has the most 
substantial basis imaginable; and, of course, 
can not depreciate below the value of land 
pledged for its redemption. As Dr. Franklin 
once said, money so issued is, in effect, ''coined 
land," 

THE VALUE OF LEGAL TENDER QUALITY IN MONEY. 

It would seem that nowhere on the wide 
earth could be found a single specimen of the 
human race, who would be willing to lessen the 
chances of the people, to keep what is left of 
the results of their labor, after paying the bond- 
holders interest and taxes. But, sir, there is. 
That gang of miserable <> stock-jobbers is still 
controlling this government, and they now pro- 



234 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

pose to change our monetary system, so as to 
destroy the last chance which the laborer has 
to realize the benefit of his money, after he has 
earned it and has it in his possession. They 
propose to destroy the most valuable principle 
in our paper money system, viz: The legal ten- 
der quality of the greenback. 

It is the only valuable principle, because it is 
all the people have to rely upon. I have al- 
ready shown the impossibility of redeeming our 
paper money in specie while the national bank 
note is not a legal tender between man and 
man. 

Thus should a state bank or private individ- 
ual hold a mortgage against your horse, and 
the debt was past due, and the last day of re- 
demption had come, and you should happen to 
have nothing but national bank money to re- 
deem the property with, and the man who held 
the mortgage saw a chance to make money by 
taking your horse, he has a right to refuse to 
receive the national bank money in payment of 
the debt, and unless you could get greenbacks 
or specie in season, your chances to save your 
property would be lost. 

The Hon. E. H. Gillett, of Iowa, gives an 
account, in his public speeches, of a case in his 
own State, where a mortgage had been fore- 



AS A NATION. 235 

closed, and the defendant made a tender of a 
thousand dollars in open court. Eight hundred 
dollars of that money was national bank cur 
rency, and, consequently, not a legal tender for 
debt. The attorney for the plaintiff looked the 
money over and refused the eight hundred dol- 
lars in bank notes, and the suit went on. But 
the two hundred dollars in greenbacks were 
good, because they were a legal tender for 
debt, and the plaintiff was obliged to give the 
defendant credit for them. 

A o^entleman from Missouri informed me that 
the first hint he ever received that our financial 
system was not sound, was when he had a case 
in court, and went to the bank to draw money 
with which to make a tender. While the money 
was being counted, he happened to mention 
the fact that he was going to tender that money 
in court. He noticed the banker withdraw the 
national bank notes already counted and re- 
place them with greenbacks, with the remark 
that, if he was going to make a tender in court, 
greenbacks would be better. 

Here it will be seen that if the legal tender 
quality had been taken from the glorious old 
greenback, and the defendant obliged to go to 
the sub-treasury in New York for specie, he 
woiild have been in rather a bad ^x — he would 



236 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

have lost his chance to save his case in court. 
The legal tender quality in the greenback saved 
him. The national bank money is a legal ten- 
der for taxes, and to the government for all 
debts except duties on imports, and from the 
government for all salaries, and all other de- 
mands except interest on bonds. 

Think of it, the national banker is not 
obliged to receive his own note in payment of 
the interest on the bond upon which the note 
is based. The Government forces the crippled 
soldier to receive national bank notes for his 
scanty pension, although it will not pay his 
grocer's bill, unless the grocer choose to 
receive it, and the soldier can demand no bet- 
ter money. But the banker can demand gold 
for the interest on his bond. 

The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report, 
refers ^to the greenback as follows : 

* * That they are convenient and safe for the community- 
is without doubt; that it is to the profit of the Government 
to continue them is also without doubt, yet there is one 
consideration that should have notice, arid that is whether 
the Government can continue to claim for them the qual- 
ity of being a legal tender for debts." 

Here the destruction of the legal tender 
quality in the greenback is recommended by .y 
the Secretary of the Treasury, and the three ^ 



AS A NATION. 237 

last presidents, have favored the same policy ; 
and the Republican Convention in Massachu- 
sets, in 1881, set forth the following declaration 
of principles: 

''The coinage of silver dollars of less intrinsic value 
than the gold dollar should be stopped, and the law mak- 
ing paper money a legal tender should be repealed." 

The same infernal policy was recommended 
at the Banker's Convention, in Louisville, Ky., 
1883. 

The New York Herald, a leading Democratic 
journal, bearing date of October 20, 1883, 
spoke as follows: 

"In the event of a crisis produced by the depreciated 
silver coins the greenback or legal tender will embody the 
second danger, as it, too, must become depreciated. Com- 
mon sense would therefore show the almost absolute neces- 
sity of dealing with this question by removing these dan- 
gers — for they are removable — and that too by compara- 
tively simple remedies. To suspend the coinage of silver 
and to repeal the legal tender quality of the greenback 
are the most rational solutions of the question." 

Is more needed to show the devilish pur- 
pose of those despoilers of the peoples' pros- 
perity and happiness? 

My countrymen, will you permit the gold 
gamblers to take the legal tender quality from 
the greenback? It is a crime against the widow 
and the orphan, as well as toiling humanity 



238 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

generally, to Issue a dollar that is not a legal 
tender. It is always dangerous to those who 
earn it. To the people it means robbery and 
despotism, and that is what the specie basis 
monetary system has proved to be. It is an 
engine of oppression, and in its march along 
the centuries it has caused more suffering than 
war. And it stands to-day, upon its record of 
failure and crime, without one sound principle 
to commend it to the favorable consideration 
of good men. 

CAN THE GOVERNMENT ISSUE MONEY AND MAKE IT 
A LEGAL TENDER? 

Having demonstrated the superiority of legal 
tender paper money, the question now arises : 
Has the Government a constitutional right to 
issue such money? 

Bank money men say no. As to the right 
of Congress to issue money and make it a 
legal tender, I offer the following : 

The Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, 
when discussing the constitutionality of legal 
tender money, said : 

"It seems to me that the constitutional power of Con- 
gress to make treasury notes a legal tender was settled long 
ago. :^ ^ iK Hi The stress that is so continually put 
upon the prohibition, addressed to the States, will justify 
me in introducing the opinion of Mr. Justice Story, in his 
commentaries." 



AS A NATION. 239 

The above is Mr. Sumner's opinion, and 
now follows Mr. Story's: 

*'Itis manifest that all those prohibitory clauses as to 
coining money, emitting bills of credit, and tendering any- 
thing but gold and silver in payment of debt, are founded 
upon the same general considerations. The policy is to 
found a fixed and uniform rule throughout the United 
States, by which the commercial and other dealings of the 
citizens, as well as the moneyed transactions of the govern- 
ment, might be regulated. (2 Story's Com., Sec. 1372.) 

"If this view be correct, then no inference adverse to 
the power of the national government, can be drawn from 
these prohibitory clauses ; for whatever may be the policy 
of the national government, it will be a fixed and uniform 
rule throughout the United States." 

Here we have the opinion of Judge Story, 
one of the most eminent jurists the world has 
yet known, that the clause in the Constitution 
which prohibits the States from emitting- bills 
of credit, coining money, or making anything 
but gold and silver coin a legal tender, has no 
reference, whatever, to the right of the general 
Government to emit bills of credit, or coin 
money from any material. 

The power that could, and did, subsidize the 
press, bribe members of Congress, and order 
business men to hold meetings with a view to 
controlling their employes in the interest of the 
old United States bank, with a capital of 



240 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

thirty-five millions, all told, and which would 
have crushed any man but Andrew Jackson, 
was but a drop to the ocean, when compared 
to the power of two thousand two hundred 
national banks, with their three hundred and 
fifty millions loaned all over the country, with 
a very large proportion of the business com- 
munity indebted to them to such an extent 
that to incur the displeasure of the banks is to 
bring ruin upon themselves. 

Jefferson realized the danger of permitting 
corporations to issue money, when he penned 
these words, found in volume vi, page 608, of 
his works : 

''I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more 
dangerous to liberty than standing armies." 

And again, when he said, in his letter to 
Mr. Eppis: 

"The power to issue money should be taken from the 
banks and restored to the Government and people, where 
it belongs." 

That immortal friend of liberty never put to 
paper a single sentiment that will thrill coming 
generations more than this, when they come to 
realize the amount of misery brought upon the 
civilized world by allowing corporations to fur- 
nish the people money. 

Read the following from the ablest constitu- 
tional lawyer that America can boast of: 



AS A NATION. 24 1 

** The great interests of this country, the producing cause 
of its prosperity, is labor ! labor ! labor ! The Government 
was made to encourage and protect this industry and give 
it security. To this very end, with this precise object in 
view, power was given to Congress over the currency and 
over the money system of the. country." — Daniel Webster, 
vol. iii, p. 35. 

HovvT can a citizen of this Republic read the 
above, from such authority as Daniel Webster 
and continue to think well of those base parti- 
sans ot avarice, who have used the press and 
rostrum and other avenues of Intellicrence, to 
instill into the public mind the false belief that 
the Government has not a constitutional right 
to issue money to the people ? As a statesman 
of profound knowledge, as a patriot of great 
coolness, as a logician of unsurpassed ability; 
as an orator of the very hlgliest type, future 
generations will regard Daniel Webster; and 
those utterances are worthy of his great heart 
and great mind. It is a sentiment on which 
the admirers of true statesmanship and lofiy 
patriotism will love to linger in connection with 
the name of. Daniel Webster. "Labor! labor! 
labor!" said he, *' It is the producing cause of 
all our prosperity. The Qovernment was made 
to protect it, and that it might be protected 
power was given to Congress over the money 
system of the country." Well he understood 
16— D. 



242 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that the interests of labor must suffer if cor- 
porations were permitted to issue money. 

Read the following from Gallatin, who was 
twelve years secretary of the American treasu- 
ry. He said: 

' ' The right of issuing paper money as currency, like that 
of issuing gold and silver coins, belongs exclusively to the 
nation, and can not be claimed by any individuals." — Writ- 
ings of A. Gallatin, vol. iii, p. 429. 

On the 31st day of January, 1833, in the 
American Senate, Daniel Webster said : 

"The constitutional power vested in Congress over the 
legal currency of the country is one of the very highest 
powers, and the exercise of this high power is one of the 
strongest bonds of the Union. ^^ ^ It is not to be doubt- 
ed that the Constitution intended that Congress should ex- 
ercise a regulating pov/er, a power both necessary and salu- 
tary, over that which should constitute the actual money 
of the country, whether this money were coin or the rep- 
resentative of coin. So it has always been considered ; so 
Mr. Madison considered it." — Works of Daniel Webster, 
vol. iii, pp. 527-29. 

Mr. Webster then quotes from President 
Madison's message, December 3, 18 16 — Re- 
cords of Congress, 14th Cong., 2d session, 
p. 16: 

*'It is essential that the nation should possess currency 
of equal value, credit and use, wherever it may circulate. 
The Constitution has intrusted Congress exclusively with 
the power of creating and regulating a currency of that 
description." 



AS A NATION. 243 

Mr. Webster further said, in a speech in the 
Senate, September 28, 1837 (Webster's Works, 
pages 336-340): 

* ' The Constitution does not stop with this grant of the 
coinage power to Congress. It expressly prohibits the 
States from issuing bills of credit. The States, therefore, 
are prohibited from issuing paper for circulation on their 
own credit, and this provision furnishes additional and 
strong proof that all circulation, whether of coin or paper, 
was intended to be subject to the regulation and control of 
Congress. ^'^ ^ I insist that the duty of Congress is com- 
mensurate with its power. ^ * A general and univers- 
ally accredited currency, therefore, is an instrument of 
commerce, which is necessary to its just advantages, or, in 
other words, which is essential to its beneficial regulation. 
Congress has power to establish it, and no other power can 
establish it. And, therefore. Congress is bound to exer- 
cise its own power. It is an absurdity, on the very face ofj 
the proposition, to allege that Congress shall regulate com- 
merce, but shall, nevertheless, abandon to others the duty 
of sustaining that upon which it is founded." 

I doubt if the reader ever saw a statement 
of a principle more in accord with his common 
sense and highest conception of justice, than 
that of the Massachusets statesman. The ar- 
gument is unanswerable, 

" Congress has power to establish a mone- 
tary system, and no other power can establ sh 
it," says the statesman. No act was ever 
placed upon the statute book that was more 



244 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

clearly unconstitutional than the national bank- 
ing- law, which allows corporations to furnish 
money, instead of the Government. 

The following is from the Supreme Court of 
the United States. In the cases Knox vs. Lee 
and Parker vs. Davis, the Court used the fol- 
lowing language : 

" Whatever power there is over the currency is vested ia 
Congress. If the power to declare what is money is not in 
Congress, it is annihilated." — Supreme Court Reports, xii 
Wallace, page 545. 

A WAR NECESSITY. 

The money power has tokl the people con- 
tinually, through the press, that the Govern- 
ment had no right to issue money only as a 
war necessity. 

As to the question of a war necessity, by 
which the bullionists would delude the people, 
the Supreme Court sets it to rest as follows: 

''The degree of the necessity for any congressional en- 
actment or the relative degree of its appropriateness, is for 
consideration in Congress, not here. When the law is not 
prohibited, and is really calculated to effect any of the ob- 
jects intrusted to the government, to undertake here to in- 
quire into the degree of its necessity, would be to pass the 
line which circumscribes the judicial department, and to 
tread upon legislative ground." — Wallace's Supreme Court 
Reports, vol. iii, page 542. 



AS A NATION. 245 

Here the Supreme Court decides the point 
as clearly as language can : ** That the degree 
of necessity for any Congressional enactment, 
must be determined by Congress. In other 
words, it does not base its decision upon the 
contingency of war, but clearly states that when 
a law is really calculated to effect any of the 
objects intrusted to the Government, Congress 
has the constitutional power to enact it." 

Who is to draw the line that is to determine 
the degree of urgency that shall justify the 
Government in Issuing money? Webster and 
the Supreme Court say that all the power there 
is over money is vested in Congress. Where 
do the national banks get the power to issue 
money? Where do they get their charter, if 
not from the Government, and if the Govern- 
ment has not power to issue money, how can 
it give the banks power to issue money ? Can 
it delegate a power it does not possess? What 
folly. When the people's eyes open wide 
(and they will) to the systematic manner in 
which their confidence has been abused by the 
money power, they will consign their present 
leaders to perpetual quietude, under the shade 
of their own vine and fig tree, to suffer the 
everlasting scorn of those whom they have so 
long and so cruelly wronged. 



246 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

IS THE THEORY THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN ISSUE 
MONEY TO THE PEOPLE NEW? 

A thought, which is not cheering to one who 
sees whither we are drifting, is, that the money 
power has been so successful in making the 
people believe that the idea that the Govern- 
ment can issue money to the people, is new 
and, therefore, the attempt would be purely 
experimental. Nothing can be further from 
the truth. The system we propose, so far as 
the issue of money by the Government and its 
non redeemability in specie is concerned, was 
understood and practiced in Venice more than 
seven hundred years ago. 

The Bank of Venice existed more than six 
hundred years, and during the last four hun- 
dred years of its existence, its notes contained 
no promise to pay in specie — they were abso- 
lute money ; and yet those notes, so issued, 
were at a premaum of twenty per cent, above 
gold! — not because they were redeemable in 
specie (for they were not) — but because they 
were the money of account; the standard of 
payment fixed by law — were legal tenders. 
Durinpf those six centuries in which the bank 
existed, there was neither financial crash nor 
disaster; it was the most beneficient banking 
system the world ever saw. It fell when Napo- 



AS A NATION. 247 

leon conquered Venice. ( For a more extended 
history of the Bank of Venice see Colwell's 
digest of fourteen authorities.) 

A very good condensed history of the Bank 
of Venice is also found in Heath's Labor and 
Finance Revolution. But, sir, we have no need 
to rummage among the dusty records of other 
countries to fmd a precedent for such a system 
of banking as I propose. 

DR. FRANKLIN ORIGINATED THE THEORY OF GOV- 
ERNMENT MONEY IN THIS COUNTRY. 

Here I will place before the reader what, in 
my judgment, is, at the present time, the most 
valuable bit of history in the United States. 
Read it, because of its eminently practical 
and common sense teachings. Read it, be- 
cause it puts to silence and to shame the mass 
of modern Shylock statesmen, who are en- 
deavoring to make the people believe that the 
idea that the government can issue money and 
loan it to the people is ridiculous, in the light 
of history. Read It, because it demonstrates 
the beneficence of such a system. Read It, 
because it proves that the attempt would not 
be experimental. Read it, because it is a^^low 
with patriotism and replete with wisdom. Read 
it, because of its responsible origin. 



248 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

It originated with . the immortal Franklin. 
Just such a monetary system as I propose was 
called into existence in this country by Benja- 
min Franklin. And whose fame rests upon a 
more enduring foundation than his? There are 
some flashes of wit, some happy hits, and some 
bursts of eloquence in the writings and speeches 
of Benjamin Franklin ; but they were purely 
incidental. They were not premeditated, and 
they form no part of his historic character. He 
was, pre-eminently, a philosopher, and decidedly 
practical. There was nothing visionary or su- 
perficial in his make-up. He was one of the 
most remarkably endowed men known to his- 
tory. His mind not only swept the whole sky 
of thought, in its majestic march through the 
universe of knowledge, but it caught and ana- 
lyzed the smallest star. He was no less great 
in dissecting and readjusting a small subject in 
comprehending the great whole. 

Those powers of mind, fortified and invigor- 
Sited with a very large fund of historical knowl- 
•^edge, and blending with a stern integrity and 
loky purpose, gave him a control over the great 
:minds of his generation second to no other 
anan. 

On e of England's ablest orators and thinkers 
^(Lord Erskine) said: 



AS A NATION. 249 

*' Those who met in convention to frame the Constitution 
■ of the United States, constituted the wisest body of men 
that ever assembled on earth for a similar purpose." 

No mind was more active, no counsel more 
sought, and no voice more potent, in that im~ 
mortal convention, than that of Benjamin 
Franklin. Of his towering genius was born 
the first and only safe and honest monetary 
system the United States has ever had within 
her borders. It was his child, and regardless 
of the wishes of its honored parent, or the good 
it was doing, the money power would have 
throttled it in its Infancy. But behind it was 
the strong arm of Benjamin Franklin — he 
■guarded its cradle, and saw it walk forth In 
mature manhood — and when fifty years were 
resting upon its brow, it had scattered number- 
less blessings through the land, and was reach- 
ing across the sea, rebuking old systems of 
robbery, scattering the squadrons of money 
kings, and sending dismay into the camp of 
despots. 

I will now place Dr. Franklin's " Essay on 
Money,'' together with the comments of sev- 
eral historians, before the reader. Like all the 
productions of the great American thinker, it 
will bear study and criticism. I will pit it 
against the sophistry of a forest of the hire- 
lings of the money power: 



250 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

DK. franklin's essay ON MONEY. 

** There is a certain proportionate quantity of money 
requisite to carry on the trade of a country freely and cor- 
rectly; more than which would be of no advantage in 
trade, and less, if much less, exceedingly detrimental to it. 

''This leads us to the following general considerations: 

^^ First. A great want of money of any trading country 
occasions interest to be at a very high rate. And here it 
'may be observed that it is impossible by any laws to re- 
strain men from giving and receiving exorbitant interest 
where money is suitably scarce ; for he that wants money 
will find out ways to give 10 per cent, when he can not 
have it for less, although the law forbids to take more than 
6 per cent. Now, the interest of money being high is 
prejudicial to a country several ways. It makes land bear 
a low price, because fe\v men will lay out their money in 
land when they can make a much greater profit by lending 
it out upon interest. And much less will men be inclined 
to venture their money at sea when they can, without risk 
or hazard, have a great and certain profit by keeping it at 
home; thus trade is discouraged. And, if in two neigh- 
boring countries the traders of one, by reason of a greater 
plenty of money, can borrow it to trade with at a lower 
rate than the traders of the other, they will infallibly have 
the advantage and get the greatest part of that trade into 
their own hands ; for he that trades with money he hath 
borrowed at 8 or 10 per cent, can not hold market with him 
that borrows his money at 6 or 4. 

"On the contrary, a plentiful currency will occasion in- 
terest to be low, and this will be an inducement to many to 
lay out their money in lands rather than put it out to use, 
by which means lands will begin to rise in value, and bear 
a better price, and at the same time it will tend to enliven 



AS A NATION. 25 I 

trade exceedingly, because people will find more profit in 
employing their money that way than in usury, and many 
that understand business very well, but have not a stock 
sufficient of their own , will be encouraged to borrow money 
to trade with when they can have it at a moderate interest. 

*^ Secondly. Want of money in a country reduces the 
price of that part of its produce which is used in trade ; 
because, trade being discouraged by it as above, there is a 
much less demand for that produce. And this is another 
reason why land in such a case will be low, especially where 
the staple commodity of the country is the immediate pro- 
duce of the land ; because; that produce being low, fewer 
people find an advantage in husbandry or the improvement 
of land. On the contrary, a plentiful currency will occa- 
sion the trading produce to bear a good price; because, 
trade being encouraged and advanced by it, there will be a 
much greater demand for that produce, which will be a 
great encouragement of husbandry and tillage, and conse- 
quently make land more valuable, for that many people 
would apply themselves to husbandry who probably might 
otherwise have sought some more profitable employment. 

' ' As we have already experienced how much the increase 
of our currency by what paper money has been made has 
encouraged our trade, particularly to instance only in one 
article, ship building, it may not be amiss to observe under 
this head what a great advantage it must be to us as a 
trading country, that has workmen and all the materials 
proper for that business within itself, to have ship building 
as much as possible advanced ; for every ship that is built 
here for the English merchants, gains the province her 
clear value in gold and silver, which must otherwise have 
been sent home for returns in her stead ; and likewise every 
ship built in and belonging to the province not only saves 
the province her first cost, but all the freight, wages and 



■252 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

provisions she ever makes or requires as long as she lasts, 
provided care is taken to make this her pay-port, and that 
;she always takes provisions with her for the whole voyage, 
which may easily be done. And how considerable an arti- 
<;le this is yearly in our favor every one the least acquainted 
with mercantile affairs must needs be sensible; for, if we 
<iOu\d not build ourselves, we must either purchase so many 
vessels as we Avant from other countries or else hire them to 
'Carry our produce to market, which would be more ex- 
pensive than purchasing, and on many other accounts ex- 
ceedingly to our loss. Now, as trade in general will decline 
where there is not a sufficient currency, so ship building 
must certainly in consequence decline where trade is de- 
clining. 

" Thirdly. Want of money in a country discourages la- 
boring and handicraftmen (who are the chief strength and 
support of a people) from coming to settle in it, and in- 
duces many that were settled to leave the country and seek 
entertainment and employment in other places, where they 
can be better paid. For what can be more disheartening 
to an industrious laboring man than this, that after he hath 
■earned his bread with the sweat of his brow, he must spend 
.as much time and have near as much fatigue in getting it 
as he had to earn it! And nothing makes more bad pay- 
masters than a general scarcity of money. And here again 
is a third reason for lands bearing a low price in such a 
country, because land always increases in value in propor- 
tion with the increase of people settling on it, there being so 
many more buyers, and its value will infallibly be dimin- 
ished if the number of its inhabitants diminish. On the 
contrary, a plentiful currency will encourage great numbers 
of laboring and handicraftmen to come and settle in the 
country, by the same reason that a want of it will discour- 
age and drive them out. Now, the more inhabitants the 



AS A NATION. 255 

greater demand for land (as is said above), upon which it 
must necessarily rise in value and bear a better price. The 
same may be said of the value of house-rent, which will 
be advanced for the same reasons, and by the increase of 
trade and riches people will be enabled to pay greater rents. 
Now, the value of house-rent rising and interest becoming 
low, many that in a scarcity of money practiced usury will 
probably be more inclined to building, which will likewise 
sensibly enliven business in any place, it being an advant- 
age not only to brickmakers, bricklayers, masons, carpen- 
ters, joiners, glaziers and several other trades immediately 
employed by building, but likewise to farmers, brewers, 
bakers, tailors, shoemakers, shopkeepers, and, in short, to 
every #ne that they lay their money out with. 

' ' Thus we have seen some of the many heavy disadvant- 
ages a country (especipJly such a country as ours) must 
labor under when it has not a sufficient stock of running 
cash to manage its trade currently. And we have likewise 
seen some of the advantages which accrue from having 
money sufficient or a plentiful currency. 

The foregoing paragraphs being well considered, we 
shall naturally be led to draw the following conclusions 
with regard to what persons will probably be for or against 
emitting a large additional sum of paper bills in this prov- 
ince: 

^^ First Since men will always be powerfully influenced 
in their opinions and actions by what appears to be tlieir 
particular interest, therefore all those who, wanting courage 
to venture in trade, now practice lending money on security 
exorbitant interest, which in a scarcity of money will be 
done, notwithstanding the law — I say all such will probably 
be against a large addition to our present stock of paper 
money, because a plentiful currency will lower interest and 
make it common to lend on less security. 



254 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

^' Second. All those who are possessors of large sums of| 
money, and are disposed to purchase land, which is attend- 
ed with a great and sure advantage in a growing country as 
this is — I say the interest of all such men will incline them 
to oppose a large addition to our money, because their 
wealth is now continually increasing by the large interest 
they receive, which will enable them (if they can keep land 
from rising) to purchase more some time hence than they 
can at present ; and in the meantime, all trade being dis- 
couraged, not only those who borrow of them, but the com- 
mon people in general, will be impoverished and, conse- 
quently, obliged to sell more land for less money than they 
will do at present. And yet, after such men are possessed 
of as much land as they can purchase, it will then be their 
interest to have money made plentiful, because that will 
immediately make land rise in value in their hands. Now, 
it ought not to be wondered at, if people, from a knowl- 
edge of a man's interest, do sometimes make a true guess 
at his designs ; for interest, they say, will not lie. 

" Third. Lawyers and others concerned in court busi- 
ness will probably many of them be against plentiful cur- 
rency ; because people in that case will have less occasion 
to run in debt, and consequently less occasion to go to law 
and sue one another for their debts. Though I know some, 
even among these gentlemen, that regard the public good 
before their own apparent private interests. 

^^ Fourth. All those who are in any way dependents on 
such persons as are above mentioned, whether holding offices 
as tenants, or as debtors, must at least appear to be against 
a large addition, because if they do not they must sensibly 
feel the present interest hurt. And besides these there are 
doubtless many well-meaning gentlemen and others who, 
without any immediate private interest of their o\vn in 
view, are against making such an addition through an 



AS A NATION. 255 

opinion they may have of the honesty and sound judgment 
of some of their friends who oppose it (perhaps for the one 
aforesaid), without having given it any thorough considera- 
tion themselves. And thus it is no wonder if there is a 
powerful party on that side. 

"On the other hand, those v/ho are lovers of trade, and 
delight to see manufactures encouraged, will be for having 
a large addition to our currency. For they very well know 
that people will have little heart to advance money in trade 
when what they can get is scarce sufiicient to purchase 
necessaries and supply their families with provisions. Much 
less will they lay it out in advancing new manufactures; 
nor is it possible new manufactures should turn to any ac- 
count where there is not money to pay the v/orkmen, who 
are discouraged by being paid in goods, because it is a great 
disadvantage to them. 

"Again: those who are truly for the proprietor's interest 
(and having no separate views of their own that are pre- 
dominaut) will be heartily for a large addition ; because, as 
I have shown above, plenty of money will, for several rea- 
sons, make land rise in value exceedingly. And I appeal 
to those immediately concerned for the proprietor in the 
sale of his lands, whether land has not risen very much 
since the first emission of what paper currency we now 
have, and even by its means. Now, we all know the pro- 
prietary has great quantities to sell. 

" And since a plentiful currency will be so great a cause 
of advancing this province in trade and riches, and increas- 
ing the number of its people, which, though it will not sens- 
ibly lessen the inhabitants of Great Britain, will occasion a 
much greater vent and demand for their commodities here, 
and allowing that the Crown is the more powerful for its 
subjects increasing in wealth and number, I can not think 
it the interest of England to oppose us in making as great 



256 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

a sum of paper money here as we, who are the best judges 
of our own necessities, find convenient. And if I w^ere not 
sensible that the gentlemen of trade in England, to whom, 
we have already parted with our silver and gold, are mis- 
informed of our circumstances, and therefore endeavor to 
have our currency stinted to what it now is, I should think 
the Government at home had some reasons for discouraging- 
and impoverishing this province whichjwe are not ac- 
quainted with. 

"It remains now that we inquire whether a large addi- 
tion to our paper currency will not make it sink in value 
very much. And here it will be requisite that we first 
form just notions of the nature and value of money in gen- 
eral. 

"As Providence has so ordered it that not only difiTerent 
countries, but even different parts of the same country have 
their peculiarly most suitable productions, and likewise that. 
different men have geniuses adapted to a variety of differ- 
ent arts and manufactures, therefore commerce, or the ex- 
change of one commodity or manafacture for another, is 
highly convenient and beneficial to mankind. As for in- 
stance, A may be skillful in the art of making cloth and B 
understands the raising of corn. A wants corn and B 
cloth ; upon which they make an exchange with each other 
for as much as each has occasion for, to the mutual advant- 
age and satisfaction of both. 

" But as it would be very tedious if there v»^ere no other 
way of general dealing but by an immediate exchange of 
commodities, because a man that had corn to dispose of and 
w^anted cloth for it, might, perhaps, in his search for a 
chapman to deal Avith, meet with twenty people that had 
cloth to dispose of but wanted no corn, and with twenty 
others who wanted his corn but had no cloth to suit him 
with, to remedy such inconveniences and facilitate exchange 



AS A NATION. 257 

men have invented money, properly called a medium of 
exchange, because through or by its means labor is ex- 
changed for labor or one commodity for another. And 
whatever particular thing men have agreed to make this 
medium of, whether gold, silver, copper, or tobacco, it is 
to those who possess it (if they want anything) that very 
thing which they want, because it will immediately procure 
it for them. It is cloth to him that wants cloth and corn 
to those that want corn, and so of all other necessaries it is 
whatsoever it will procure. Thus he who has corn to dis- 
pose of and wanted to purchase cloth with it might sell his 
corn for its value in the general medium to one who wanted 
corn but had no cloth, and with this medium he might pur- 
chase cloth of him that wanted no corn, but perhaps some 
other thing, as iron, it may be, which this medium y>'ill im- 
mediately procure, and so he may be said to have ex- 
changed his cloth for iron, and thus the general chauge is 
soon performed to the satisfaction of all parties with abund- 
ance of facility. 

"For many ages those parts of the world which are en- 
gaged in commerce have fixed upon gold and silver as the 
chief and most proper material for this medium, they being 
in themselves valuable metals for their fineness, beauty and 
.scarcity. By these, particularly by silver, it has been usual 
to value all things else. But as silver itself is of no cer- 
tain permanent value, being Avortli more or less according 
to its scarcity or plenty, therefore it seems requisite to fix 
upon something else more proper to be made a measure of 
values, and this I take to be labor. 

"By labor may the value of silver be measured as well 
as other things. As suppose one man employed to raise 
corn, while another is digging and refining silver; at the 
year's end or at any other period of time the complete pro- 
duce of corn and that of silver are the natural price of 
17— D. 



258 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

each other, and if one be twenty bushels and the other 
twenty ounces, then an ounce of that silver is worth the 
labor of raising a bushel of that corn. Now, if by the dis- 
covery of some near, more easy, or plentiful mines, a man 
may get forty ounces of silver as easily as formerly he did 
twenty, and the same labor is still required to raise twenty 
bushels of corn, then two ounces of silver will be woi-th no 
more than the same labor of raising one bushel of corn, 
and that bushel of corn will be as cheap at two ounces as 
it was before at one, cateris 'paribus. 

" Thus the riches of the country are to be valued by the 
quantity of labor its inhabitants are able to purchase, and 
not by the quantity of silver and gold they possess, which 
will purchase more or less labor, and, therefore, is more or 
less valuable, as is said before, according to its scarcity or 
plenty. As those metals have grown much more plentiful 
in Europe since the discovery of America, so they have 
sun\ in value exceedingly; for to instance, in England, 
formerly one penny of silver was worth a day's labor, but 
now it is worth hardly the sixth part of a day's labor, be- 
cause not less than sixpence will purchase the labor of a 
man for a day in any part of that kingdom, which is wholly 
to be attributed to the much greater plenty of money now 
in England than formerly. And yet, perhaps, England is » 
in effect no richer now than at that time, because as much 
labor might be purchased or work got done of almost any 
kind for £100 then as will now reouire or is now worth 
£600. • ^ =^< . >i< 

*' As those who take bills out of the banks in Europe put 
in money for security, so here and in some of the neighbor- 
ing provinces we engage our land. Which of these meth- 
ods will most effectually secure the bills from actually sink- 
ing in value comes next to be considered. 

*' Trade in general being nothing else but the exchange 



AS A NATION. 259 

of labor for labor, the value of all things is, as I have said 
before, most justly measured by labor. Now, suppose I 
put my money into a bank and take out a bill for the value, 
if this bill at the time of my receiving it would purchase 
me the labor of one hundred men for twenty days, but 
some time after will only purchase the labor of the same 
number of men for fifteen days, it is plain the bill has sunk 
in value one-fourth part. 

*'Now, silver and gold being of [no permanent value,' 
and as this bill is founded on money, and therefore to be 
esteemed as such, it may be that the occasion of this fall is 
in the increasing plenty of gold and silver, by which money 
is one-fourth less valuable than before, and therefore one- 
fourth more is given of it for the same quantity of labor, 
and if land is not become more valuable by some propor- 
tionate decrease of the people, one-fourth part more of 
money is given for the same quantity of land, whereby it 
appears that it would have been more profitable to me to 
have laid that money out in land which I put into tlie bank 
than to place it there find take a bill for it. And it is cer- 
tain that the value of money has been continually sinking 
in England for several ages past, because it has been con- 
tinually increasing in quantity. But if bills could be taken 
out of a bank in Europe on a land security, it is probable 
the value of such bills would be more certain and steady, 
because the number of inhabitants continues to be near the 
same in those countries from age to age. 

" For as bills issued upon money security are money, so 
bills issued upon land are in effect coined land. 

"Therefore, (to apply the above to our own circum- 
stances) if land in this province was falling or any way 
likely to faW, it would behoove the Legislature most care- 
fully to contrive how to prevent the bills issued upon land 
from falling with it. But as our people increase exceed- 



26o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ingly, and will be further increased, as I have before shown, 
by the help of a large addition to our currency, and as 
land is continually rising, so in case no bills are emitted 
but what are upon land security, the money acts in every 
part punctually enforced and executed, the payments of 
principal and interest being duly and strictly required, and 
the principal bona fide sunk according to law, it is abso- 
lutely impossible such bills should ever sink below their 
first value or below the value of the land on which they 
are founded. In short, there is so little danger of their 
sinking that they would certainly rise as tlie land rises if 
they were not emitted in a proper manner for preventing 
it. That is, by providing in the act that payment may be 
made either in those bills or in any other bills made cur- 
rent by any act of the Legislature of this province, and 
that the interest as it is received may be again emitted in 
discharge of public debts whereby circulating, it returns 
again into the hands of the borrowers, and becomes part of 
their future payments, and thus, as is likely, there will not 
be any difficulty for want of bills to pay the office ; they 
are hereby kept from rising above their first value. For 
else, supposing there should be emitted upon mortgaged 
land its full present value in bills, as in the banks in Eu- 
rope, the full value of the money deposited given out in 
bills, and supposing the office w^ould take nothiog but the 
same sum in those bills in discharge of tlie land, as in the 
banks aforesaid, the same sum in their bills must be brought 
in in order to receive out the money. In such case the 
bills would most surely rise in value as the land rises, as 
certainly as the bank bills founded on money fall if that 
money was falling. Thus, if I were to mortgage to a loan 
officer or bank a parcel of land now valued at £100 in sil- 
ver, and receive for it the like sum in bills, to be paid in 
again at the expiration of a certain term of years, before 



AS A NATION. 26 1 

wliicli my land, rising in value, becomes worth £150 in 
silver, it is plain that if I have not these bills in possession, 
and the office will take nothing but these bills, or else Avhat 
it is now become worth in silver, in discharge of my land^ — 
I say it appears plain that those bills will now be worth 
£150 in silver to the possessor, and if I can purchase them 
for less, in order to redeem my land, I shall be so much the 
gainer. 

"I need not say anything to convince the judicious that 
our bills have not yet sunk, though there has been some 
difference betAveen them and silver, because it is evident 
that that difference occasioned by the scarcity of the latter, 
which is now become a merchandise, rising and falling like 
other commodities, as there is a greater or less demand for 
it, or as it is more or less plenty. 

' ' Yet further, in order to make a true estimate of the 
value of money, we must distinguish between money as it 
is bullion, which is merchandise, and as by being coined it 
is made currency. For its value as a merchandise and its 
value as a currency are two distinct things, and each may 
possibly rise and fall in some degree independent of the 
other. Thus, if the quantity of bullion increases in a 
country, it will proportionately decrease in value ; but if at 
the same time the current coin should decrease (supposing 
payments may be made in bullion), what coin there is will 
rise in value as a currency ; that is, people will give more 
labor in manufactures for a certain sum of money. 

* ' In the same manner must we consider a paper currency 
founded on laud, as it is laud and as it is currency. 

" Money as a bullion or as land is valuable by so much 
labor as it oosts to procure that bullion or land. 

"Money as a currency has an additional value by so 
much time and labor as it saves in the exchange of commo- 
dities. 



262 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" If as a currency it saves one-fourth part of tlie time 
and labor of a country, it has on that amount one-fourth 
added to its original value. 

** When there is no money in a country all commerce 
must be by exchange. Now, if it takes one-fourth part of 
the time and labor of a country to exchange, or get their 
commodities exchanged, then, in computing their value, 
that labor of exchanging must be added to the labor of 
manufacturing those commodities. But if that time or 
labor is saved by introducing money sufficient, then the ad- 
ditional value on account of the labor of exchanging may 
be abated and things sold for only the value of the labor in 
making them, because the people may now in the same 
time make one-fourth more in quantity of manufactures 
than they could before. 

* ' From these considerations it may be gathered that in 
all the degrees between having no money in a country and 
money sufnclent for the trade it will rise and fall in value 
as a currency in proportion to the decrease or increase of 
its quantity. And if there may be at some time more than 
enough, the overplus will have no effect toward making the 
currency, as a currency, of less value than when there was 
but e lOugh, because such overplus will not be used in trade,^ 
but be some other way disposed of. 

"If we inquire how much per cent, interest ought to be 
required upon the loan of these bills, we must consider 
what is the natural standard of usury. And this appears 
to be, where the security is undoubted, at least the rent of 
so much land as the money leut will buy. For it can not 
be expected that any man will lend his money for less than 
it v»'ould fetch him in as rent if he laid it out in land, which 
is the most secure property in the world. But if the secur- 
ity is casual, then a kind of insurance must be interwoven 
with the simple natural interest which may advance the 



AS A NATION. 263 

usury very conscionably to any Light below the principal 
itself. 

*'Now, among us, if the value of land is twenty years' 
purchase, 5 per cent, is the just rate of interest for money 
lent on undoubted security. YeL if money grows scarce 
in a country, it becomes more oifficult for the people to 
make punctual payments of what they borrow, money be- 
ing hard to be raised; likewise, trade being discouraged 
and business impeded for want of currency, abundance of 
people must be in declining circumstances, and by these 
means security is more precarious than where money is 
plenty. On such accounts it is no wonder if the people ask 
a greater interest for their money than the natural interest, 
and what is above is to be looked upon as a kind of pre- 
mium for the insurance of those uncertainties, as they are 
greater or less. Thus we always see that where money is 
scarce interest is high, and low where it is plenty. Now, 
it is certainly the advantage of a country to make interest 
as low as possible, as I have already shown, and this can 
be done in no other way than by making money plentiful. 
And since in emitting paper money among us the office has 
the best of security, the titles to the lands being ail skill- 
fully and strictly examined and ascertained, and as it is 
only permitting the people by law to coin their own laud, 
which costs the government nothing, the interest being 
more than enougli to pay tlie charges of the printing, offi- 
cers' fees, etc., I can not see any good reason why 4 per cent, 
to the loan office should not be thought fully sufficient. As 
a low interest may incline more to take money out, it will 
become more plentiful in trade, and this may brnig down 
the common usury in which security is more dubious to the 
pitch it is determined at by law. 

"If it should be objected that emitting it at so low an 
interest and on such easy terms will occasion more to be 



264 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

taken out than the trade of the country really requires, it 
may be answered that it has already been shown there can 
never be so much of it emitted as to make it fall below the 
land it is founded on, because no man in his senses will 
mortgage his estate for what is of no more value to him 
than that he has mortgaged, especially if the possesion of 
what he receives is more precarious than of what he mort- 
gages, as that of paper money is when compared to land. 
And if it should ever become so plenty by indiscreet per- 
sons continuing to take out a large overplus above what is 
necessary in trade, so as to make people imagine it would 
become by that means of less value than their mortgaged 
lands, they would immediately, of course, begin to pay it 
in again to the office to redeem their land, and continue to 
do so till there was no more left in trade than was abso- 
lutely necessary. And thus the proportion would find it- 
self (though there were a million too much in the office to 
be let out), without giving any one the trouble of calcula- 
tion. 

"It may perhaps be objected to what I have written con- 
cerning the advantages of a large addition to our currency 
that if the people of this province increase and husbandry 
is more followed we shall overstock the markets w^th our 
produce of flour, etc. To this it may be answered that we 
can never have too many people (nor too much money). 
For when one branch of trade or business is overstocked 
with hands there are the more to spare to be employed in 
another. So if raising wheat proves dull more may (if 
there is money to support and carry on new manufactures) 
proceed to the raising and manufacturing of hemp, silk, 
iron and many other things the country is very capable of, 
for which we only want people to work and money to pay 
them with. 

" Upon the whole, it may be observed that it is the high- 



AS A NATION. 265 

€st interest of a trading country in general to make money 
plentiful, and that it can be a disadvantage to none that 
have honest designs. It can not hurt even the usurers, 
though it should sink what they receive as interest, because 
they will be proportionately more secure in what they, lend, 
or they will have an opportunity of employing their money 
to greater advantage to themselves as well as to the coun- 
try. Neither can it hurt those merchants who have great 
sums outstanding in debts in the country, and seem on that 
account to have the most plausible reason to fear it, to-wit: 
because a large addition being made to our currency will 
increase the deinand of es;porting produce, and by that 
means raise the price of it, so that they will not be able to 
purchase so much bread or flour for £100 when they shall 
receive it after such an addition as they now can and may 
if there is no addition. I say it can not hurt even such, be- 
cause they will get in their debts just in exact proportion 
so much easier and sooner as the money becomes plentier; 
and, therefore, considering the interest and trouble saved, 
they will not be losers, because it only sinks in value as a 
€urrency proportionally as it becomes more plenty. It 
can not hurt the interest of Great Britain, as has* been 
shown, and it will greatly advance the interest of tlie pro- 
prietor. It will be an advantage to every industrious 
tradesman, etc., because his business will be carried on 
more freety and trade be universally enlivened by it. And 
as more business in all manufactures will be done by so 
much as the labor and time spent in exchange is saved, the 
country in general will grow so much the richer. 

"It is nothing to the purpose to object the wretched falls 
of the bills in New England and South Carolina, unless it 
might be made evident that their currency was eiyitted 
with the same prudence and on such good security as our3 
is, and it certainly was not. 



266 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

*'As this essay was wrote and published in haste, and 
the subject in itself intricate, I hope I shall be censured 
with candor if, for want of time carefully to revise what I 
have written, in some places I should appear to have ex- 
pressed myself too obscurely and in others am liable to ob- 
jections I did not foresee. I sincerely desire to be ac- 
quainted with the truth, and on that account shall think 
myself obliged to any one who will take the pains to show 
me, or the public, where I am mistaken in my conclusions. 
And as we all know there are among us several gentlemen 
of acute parts and profound learning who are very much 
against any addition to our money, it were to be wished 
that they would favor the country with their sentiments on 
this head in print, which, supported with truth and good 
reasoning, may probably be very convincing. 

' ' And this is to be desired the rather because many peo- 
ple, knowing the abilities of those gentlemen to manage a 
good cause, are apt to construe their silence in this as an 
argument of a bad one. Had anything of that kind ever 
yet appeared perhaps I should not have given the public 
this trouble. But as those ingenious gentlemen have not 
yet (and I doubt never will) think it worth their concern 
to enlighten the minds of their erring countrymen in this 
particular, I think it would be highly commendable in ev- 
ery one of us more fully to bend our minds to the study of 
what is the true interest of Pennsylvania, whereby we may 
be enabled not only to reason pertinently with one another, 
but, if occasion requires, to transmit home such clear rep- 
resentations as must inevitably convince our superiors of 
the reasonableness and integrity of our designs." 

The foregoing essay of Dr. Franklin, to- 
gether with the following historical comments, 



AS A NATION. 267 

showing the marvelous success of his monetary 
system, was placed before the forty-sevenih 
Congress by the Hon. E. H. Gillett, of Iowa, 
but that Congress was composed largely of 
bankers, and of course would not consent to 
the adoption of a monetary system which 
would destroy their business as bankers. 

I here give the testimony of history, together 
with Mr. Gillett's comments. Mr. Gillett says : 

"The Assembly of Pennsylvania were so influenced by 
the above article, that the measures proposed by it were 
soon adopted. 

"The following description of the system established is 
taken from Pownall's Administration of the Colonies, fourth 
edition, pages 234-236: 

" ' As the paper money act made and passed in Pennsyl- 
vania in 1739 was the completest of the kind, containing 
all the improvements which experience had from time to 
time suggested in the execution of preceding acts, an ac- 
count of that act will best explain and recommend the 
measure contained in the following proposal : 

" ' The sum of the notes by that act directed to be printed 
was £80,000 proclamation money. This money was to be 
emitted to the several borrowers from a loan office estab- 
lished for that purpose. 

" 'Five persons were nominated trustees of the loan of- 
fice, under whose care and direction the bills or notes were 
to be printed and emitted. 

" 'To suit the bills for a common currency they were of 
small and various denominations, from twenty shillings 
down to one shilling. 



268 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

" 'Various precautions were taken to prevent counter- 
feits, by peculiarities in the paper, character, manner of 
printing, signing, numbering, etc. 

" 'The trustees took an oath and gave security for the 
due and faithful execution of theii' office. 

" 'They were to lend out the bills on real security of at 
least double the value for a term of sixteen years, to be re- 
paid in yearly quotations or installments, with interest. 
Thus one sixteeiith part of the principal was 3^early paid 
back into the office, which made the payment easier to the 
borrower. The interest was applied to public services ; the 
principal during the first ten years let out again to fresh 
borrowers. 

" 'The borrowers, from year to year, were to have the 
money only for the remaining part of the term of sixteen 
years, repaying by fewer and of course proportionately 
larger installments, and during the last six years of the 
sixteen the sums paid in were not emitted, but the notes 
burnt and destroyed, so that at the end of the sixteen years 
the whole might be called in and burnt, and the accounts 
completely settled. 

' ' ' The trustees were taken from all the different counties 
of the province, their residence in different parts giving 
them better opportunities of being acquainted with the 
value and circumstances of estates offered in mortgage. 

" ' They were to continue but four years in office, were to 
account annually to committees of Assembly, and at the 
expiration of that term they vrere to deliver up all moneys 
and securities in their hands to their successors before their 
bonds and securities could be discharged. 
. " ' Lest a few wealthy persons should engross the money, 
which was intended for more general benefit, no one person, 
whatever security he might offer, could borrow more than 
£100. 



AS A NATION. 269 

" ' Thus numbers of poor new settlers were accommodated 
and assisted with money to carry on their settlements, to be 
repaid in easy portions yearly, as the yearly produce of 
their lands should enable them.' " 

Gillett's comments — 

**For fifty years the paper money system or the issue by 
the Colonial Government of legal tender ' proclamation 
money,' as it was at first called, and afterward ' resolve 
money,' was continued with marvelous results. This money 
bore no promise of redemption in coin, but a promise to 
receive it for all dues. It never was redeemed in coin. It 
rested upon the credit of the tax-payers and wealth pro- 
ducers of Pennsylvania, and was loaned to the extent of 
the demand upon land and plate — not to bankers, not to 
corporations in immense sums, but to farmers and business 
men, in sums not exceeding £100. Phillips' Paper Cur- 
rency, a book published in 1765, opposed to paper money, 
says on page 36 : ' No great fluctuations are recorded in 
this province (Pennsylvania).' The money was so good it 
circulated in neighboring provinces as at home. The vol- 
ume was governed by the necessities of individuals and of 
the public, and was always sustained in value by taxation. 

"There were thirty-five issues of this money, either to 
redeem old issues or supply the demand for increased cir- 
culation, and so universally was this system commended 
by the wonderful developments and prosperity of Pennsyl- 
vania that it conquered all opposition. Even Englishmen 
were forced to approve it, and Pennsylvania was made an 
exception to the law of Parliament prohibiting the issue of 
paper money in the Colonies, passed in 1751. But for 
paper money this country never could have acquired the 
resources necessary to enable it to cope with England and 
overcome her in the Revolutionary War. 



270 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

''In 1759 there were nearly £385,000 circulation of 
'proclamation money' — immense sum for those days and 
for a single colony. The population of Pennsylvania with 
Delaware was estimated at 195,000 in 1754. (Bancroft's 
History of the United States, vol. iii, p. 91.) Benjamin 
Franklin received the gratitude of the people for his efforts 
to establish the system. His article quoted above caused 
its origin, and he was the architect. The richest men in 
Philadelphia sought the office of signers of these bills to 
gratify their pride. 

"Thomas Pownall, M. P., of England, who had served 
the Grown as governor and commander-in-chief of the 
provinces of Massachusetts and North Carolinsi, and also 
as lieutenant governor of New Jersey, in a book written by 
him on the Administration of the Colonies, published in 
London in 1768, says, on page 185, after cond'emning a 
proposed plan for a provincial bank : 

" 'I will recommend to the consideration of those who 
take a lead in business, a measure devised and adminis- 
tered by an American Assembly, and I will venture to say 
that there never was a wiser or better measure, never one 
better calculated to serve the uses of an increasing coun- 
try, and there never was a measure more steadily pursued 
or more faithfully executed for forty years together than 
the loan office in Pennsylvania, formed and administered 
by the Assembly of that province. 

" ' In a country under such circumstances money lent 
upon interest to settlers creates money. Paper money thus 
lent upon interest will create gold and silver principal, 
while the interest becomes a revenue that pays the charge 
of the Government, This currency is the true Pactolean 
stream which converts all into gold that is washed by it. 
It is on this principle that the wisdom and virtue of the 



AS A NATION. 27 1 

Assembly of Pennsylvania established, under the sanction 
of government, an office for the remission of paper money 
by loan.'" 

Gillett's comments — 

''It was universally accepted and regarded as an axiom 
by our colonial fathers, that it was not only the right, but 
the duty, of the Government to provide the people with a 
sufficient supply of money for the wants of trade. 

"Dr. Franklin gave this account in his autobiography 
of the introduction of his system in Pennsylvania : 

"'About this time (1723) there v/as a cry among the 
people for more paper money, only £15,000 being extant 
in the province, and that soon to be sunk. The wealtliy 
inhabitants opposed any addition, being against all paper 
currency. 

" ' I was on the side of an addition, being persuaded that 
the first small sum, struck in 1722, had done much good 
by increasing the trade, employment and number of the 
inhabitants in the province, since I now saw all the old 
houses inhabited and many new ones building, whereas I 
remembered well when I first walked about the streets of 
Philadelphia (eating my roll), I saw many of the houses 
in Walnut street, between Second and Front streets, with 
bills on their doors ' to let,' and many likewise in Chestnut 
street and other streets, which made me think the inhabit- 
ants of the city were one after another deserting it. Our 
debates possessed me so fully of the subject that I wrote 
and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, entitled, "The 
Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency." (Quoted 
above.) 

'"It was well received by the common people in general, 
but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and strength- 
ened the clamor for more money, and they, happening to 



272 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

have no writers among them that were able to answer it, 
the opposition slackened, and the point was carried by a 
majority in the House. * * The utility of this currency 
became by time and experience so evident that the princi- 
ples upon Avhich it was founded Avere never afterward much 
disputed, so that it grew soon to £55,000, and in 1739 to 
£80,000, trade, building and inhabitants all the while in- 
creasing, though I now think there are limits beyond which 
the quantity may be hurtful.'" 

Gillett's comments — 

"Dr. Franklin never changed his convictions as to the ne- 
cessity and utility of government legal tender paper money 
system for America. At the age of fifty-eight years he 
went before a committee of Parliament to answer a report 
of the Board of Trade, dated February 9, 1764, containing 
reasons for restricting the issue of paper bills of credit in 
America ' as a legal tender,' and in his unanswerable argu- 
ment against the restriction, he said : 

*' 'If carrying out all the gold and silver ruins the coun- 
try, every colony was ruined before it made paper money. 
But far from being ruined by it, the colonies that have 
made use of paper money have been and are all in a thriv- 
ing condition. 

" 'Pennsylvania, before it made any paper money, v/as 
totally stripped of its gold and silver, though they had 
from time to time, like the neighboring colonies, agreed to 
take gold and silver coins at higher nominal values, in 
hopes of drawing money into and retaining it for the inter- 
nal uses of the province ; * * but this practice of in- 
creasing the denomination was found not to answer the 
end. 



AS A NATION. 273 

" 'The difficulties for want of cash were accordingly 
very great, the chief part of trade being carried on by the 
extremely inconvenient method of barter; when, in 1723, 
paper money was first made there, which gave new life to 
business, promoted greatly the settlement of new lands (by 
lending small sums to beginners on easy interest, to be paid 
in installments), whereby the province has so greatly in- 
creased in inhabitants that the export from hence thither 
is now more than tenfold what it then was, and by their 
trade with foreign colonies they have been able to obtain 
great quantities of gold and silver to remit hither in return 
for the manufactures of this country.'" 

Speaking of the price of coin in paper money, 
Dr. Franklin says: 

'' On the emission of first paper money a difierence soon 
arose between that and silver, the latter having a property 
the former had not, a property always in demand in the 
colonies, to-wit : its being fit for a remittance. This prop- 
erty having soon found its value by the merchants bidding 
on one another for it, and a dollar thereby coming to be rated 
at eight shillings in paper in New York, and 7s 6d in Penn- 
sylvania, it has continued uniformly at those rates in both 
provinces, now nearly forty years, though in Pennsylvania 
the paper currency has at times increased from £15,000, 
the first sum, to £60,000, or near it. Nor has any altera- 
tion been occasioned by the paper money in the price of the 
necessaries of life when compared with silver. 

In summing up the case, Dr. Franklin says: 

*' On the whole, no method has hitherto been formed te 
establish a medium of trade, in lieu of money (coin), equal 
in all its advantages to bills of credit, founded on sufficient 
18— D. 



2 74 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTINe; 

taxes for discharging it, or on land security of doable the 
value for repaying it at the end of the term, and in the 
meantime made a general legal tender. The experience of 
now nearly half a century in tlie middle colonies has con- 
vinced them of it, among themselves, by the increase of 
their settlements, numbers, general buildings, improve- 
ments, agriculture, shipping and commerce, and the same 
experience has satisfied the British merchants who trade 
thither that it has been greatly useful to them, and not in 
a single instance prejudicial." 

TWO SYSTEMS OF LOANING MONEY— DIFFERENCE IN 
THE COST TO THE PP:OPLE? 

To illustrate the difference in the effect, upon 
the people, of the specie-basis banking system, 
as now existing, and the one I propose, we will 
say that the government is issuing money: The 
people are electing their own loan agents or 
bankers, and putting those agents under bonds, 
for the safe keeping and proper handling of 
every cent of their money, thus guarding the 
people, and government, against any possible 
loss; the interest. collected is being used to 'de- 
fray the expenses of the government, thus re- 
lieving the people from a heavy burden of tax- 
ation. Then, too, the interest paid on money 
is not concentrating in the hands of bankers, 
and creating a dangerous money monopoly; 
but is being redistributed among the people, in 
paying that which they would otherwise be 



AS A NATION. 275 

obliged to pay in taxes. Can any rational 
mind see anything but good to result from such 
a system as this? 

While this policy is being pursued, and the 
whole people getting the benefit of the inter- 
est paid on money, let us see what results would 
follow a change back to the present system of 
banking. To make the illustration simple and 
clear, we will take a single township — 23,040 
acres — and estimate the land at J 10 per acre. 
This gives $230,400 as the aggregate value of 
the land in the township. Now the banker 
comes along and convinces the people that 
they ought not to permit the Government to 
loan money, but, instead, ought to let him fur- 
nish it. Well, he sets up his bank with a 
chunk of gold, worth twenty thousand dollars. 
On that twenty thousand dollars, in specie, he 
issues one hundred thousand dollars, in bank 
bills, which are his own promises -to pay one 
hundred thousand dollars, with a capital of 
twenty thousand. The hundred thousand dol- 
lars is soon loaned to the people, at ten per 
cent, interest. Take notice! ten percent, in- 
terest, on one hundred thousand dollars, is fifty 
per cent, interest on his real capital; for, re- 
member, he has a basis of only twenty thou- 
sand dollars. This hundred thousand dolhirs, 



276 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

issued on twenty thousand in gold, he has 
promised to pay the people in specie, but knows 
he can not do it Thus the people are using 
his notes, which he can never pay, to do busi- 
ness with. 

Now, plain figures show that, in twenty-live 
years, the citizens of the township will have 
paid the banker $250,000, in simple interest, 
which is $19,600 more than their land was 
worth, when the banker (the legal robber) came 
among them. 

But this is not all the loss they must suffer. 
When they consented for the banker to furnish 
them money, instead of the Government, the 
Government lost its interest income, which had 
been paying the people's taxes, and now the 
people must pay them. 

But this is not all. There comes a panic — 
there is a run on the bank for redemption in 
specie. 

What then ? Why the people find out, what 
they ought to have known in the beginning, 
viz: that one hundred thousand dollars can not 
be redeemed with twenty thousand. There is 
no redemption for their money. The volume 
of currency is contracted, as a result of a run 
on the banks. Prices fall, and where are the 
people? What is their condition? 



AS A NATION. 277 

They have lost more than the whole value 
of their land, in interest paid. They have lost 
the saving in taxes, and now must lose a por- 
tion, if not all, of their money. 

But hov/ has the banker fared? He has been 
drawing interest on his debts, to the amount 
of more than five times his investment: and 
now he has mortgages on the people's land for 
more than five times the amount he ever had 
invested, and many an honest farmer must give 
up his home to Shylock, and toil on in poverty, 
while the banker rolls in wealth and shouts 
" Honest money! " 

Is it not plain that such a system of banking, 
if allowed to continue, will bring certain and 
irretrievable ruin upon our country? 

I will here quote the following from Abbott's 
Life of Benjamin Franklin : 

*' Between the years 1740 and 1775, while abundance 
reigned in Pennsylvania and there was peace in all her 
borders, a more happy and prosperous population could not 
perhaps be found on this globe. In every home there was 
comfort. The people generally were highly moral, and 
knowledge was extensively diffused." 

The glorious season of prosperity and hap- 
piness above described, was during the time 
when the government of Pennsylvania loaned 
its own money and saved the interest for the 



278 W.HITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

people, instead of giving it to bankers, and 
also controlled the volume of money in circu- 
lation, thereby keeping prices uniform and 
securing prosperity for themselves. The way 
to continued prosperity and happiness without 
intermission for this people is just as plain as 
the road to mill, when once they learn what it 
is that controls the money price of their labor 
and its results. 

In striking contrast to the above history of 
the results jdF loaning money by the Govern- 
ment, without a specie basis, I will place the 
following from John Thompson, vice president 
of the Chase National Bank of New York, and 
one of the most noted bankers on earth. Be- 
fore the Bankers' Convention, at Louisville^ 
Ky., on the eleventh day of October, 1883, 
(See New York Tribune of October 12, 1883.) 
Mr. Thompson said: 

"Shrinkage in prices may be attributed in part to the 
fact that, while the business, the wealth and the money re- 
quirements of the country have been vastly increased dur- 
ing the past twenty years, the actual currency in use has 
been diminished, and is still being reduced. The imports 
have exceeded the exports of gold ; but it is evident that 
thife excess is being hoarded, leaving only our mining pro- 
duct to meet increasing currency requirements. During^ 
these twenty years, excepting only a short period during 
the panic of 1873, confidence in the substitutes for money. 



AS A NATION. 279 

that is, cbeckF, drafts, etc., has been almost perfect. De- 
posits in banks have been considered about equal to money 
in hand ; and these substitutes for money have become the 
mediums for payments to the enormous extent of 95 per 
cent, of business transactions. Whenever the confidence 
which permits the use of these substitutes is shp.ken, and 
there arises distrust of banks, of bill-drawers, and of cred- 
its generally, then will come a sweeping revulsion, and a 
violent scramble for the inadequate actual money, and the 
hoarded currency will not return to business channels until 
prices have been ruinously reduced. 

H: t- :^ -^ -fc j;< ^i 

"In a panic national banks are quite sure to reduce cir- 
culation, and specie currency takes to itself win^s, and will 
reappear onl}^ when bankruptcy arid forced sales iiave re- 
duced prices disastrously. Tiie Government Treasury be- 
ing the sole controlling money power,' Oougress sliould 
authorize some measure that will give the needed ehisticity 
to the currency under proper restrictions. All points of 
the country, even the most distant, are ])()und by very close 
sympatiiy in business affairs, througii the wonderfiil con- 
nections of wire and rail. Therefore, this is a matter of no 
local or sectional interest, but deeply ccmcerns every mem- 
ber of this convention, from whatever section he jnay 
come. Business has been subject periodically to seasons 
of financial distress. Sanitary measures are instituted for 
protection against a threatening [>esti]ence; and certainly 
no efforts should be spared to devise some measure or meaiii- 
ures which shall serve to break the force of a financial 
revulsion, aud prevent the widespread disaster it causes 
when unchecked. This view of the situation ha>i impressed 
me so forcibly that I would strongly urge that some d-Hided 
expression be given, and tliat the attention of Congress be 



28o WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

called by this convention to the urgent need of legislation 
which shall, as far as possible, protect business interests 
whenever the besom of financial destruction shall sweep 
over the land." 

Mr. Thompson at the close of his paper recommended 
the passage of a resolution by the association asking Con- 
gress to pass a law authorizing the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury to issue $100,000,000 in currency notes in times of 
financial stringency. 

What more need be said, when bankers 
admit all I claim, viz.: That specie takes wings 
whenever it is needed; that low prices are 
the result of a small volume of money; that 
enlarging the voium.e will relieve the distress, 
and that the Government ought to issue money 
to relieve such distress? 

Reader, ponder well those utterances of 
Banker Thompson. 

The arguments in support of the proposition 
that the Government can safely and profitably 
issue money to the people were found to be 
unanswerable when plead before the colony 
of Pennsylvania by Dr. Franklin. Although 
that system of money met with the same bit- 
ter opposition from Shylock that it does now, 
fifty years of practice proved that the theory- 
was founded in true philosophy. Now, instead 
of being before the country with a visionary 
scheme of some unreflecting mind, asking to 



AS A NATION. 28 1 

have a dangerous experiment tried, I am ask- 
ing that the Government adopt a system of 
finance, introduced by one of the wisest states- 
men any age has produced, and the wisdom 
and beneficence of which system has been 
demonstrated by the experience of half a cen- 
tury. 

ENLARGING THE VOLUME OF MONEY. 

With reference to the proposition to enlarge 
the volume of money, I will quote some au- 
thorities on the subject. David Hume, the 
great- English historian, and one of the world's 
ablest thinkers, says : 

*' Accordingly we find that, in every kingdom into which 
money begins to flow in greater abundance than formerly, 
everything takes on a new face ; labor and industry gain 
new life; the merchant becomes more enterprising, the 
manufacturer more diligent and skillful, and even the 
farmer follows his plow with greater alacrity and attention. 
* ^ * It is the oil which renders the motion of the 
wheels more smooth and easy. * ^i^ >!< The good policy 
of the government consists only in keeping it, if possible, 
still increasing, because, by that means, it keeps alive a 
spirit of industry in the nation, and increases the stock of 
labor, in which consist all real power and riches. A nation 
whose money decreases is actually at that time weaker and 
more miserable than another nation wliieh possesses no 
more money, but is on the increasing hand." 

Mr. Jevons, of the Owens Universit)', En- 
gland, says: 



252 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

"Increasing the quantity of money must have, as I 
should say, has ah-eady, a most powerful beneficial effect. 
It loosens the country from the old bonds of debt and 
habit as nothing else could. It throws increased reAvard& 
before all who are making and acquiring wealth, somewhat 
at the expense of those who are enjoying acquired wealth. 
It excites the active and skillful classes of the community 
to new exertions, and is, to some extent, like a discharge 
of his debts is to the bankrupt and insolvent long strug- 
gling against his burdens." 

1 will close my quotations, on this point, with 
one from Professor McCulloch The ereat 
Scotch Economist, in speaking of the increas- 
ing volume of money, says: 

"Like a fall of rain after a long course of dry weather, 
it may be prejudicial to certain classes, it is beneficial to an 
incomparably greater number, including all who are en- 
gaged in industrial pursuits; and is, speaking generally, of 
great national advantage." 

Fellow countrymen, your remedy is in a 
larger and more uniform volume of currency, 
with reduced rates of interest. The laborer 
may institute his "Trade Unions," and organi- 
zations of a like character. I will not oppose 
them. I will not oppose anything that has a 
tendency to excite discussion on economic 
questions, for there is my hope for the perpe- 
tuity of our free institutions. The enlighten- 
ment of the people on those subjects, and that 



AS A NATION. 283 

alone, can secure the continuance of this gov- 
ernment, in its present form, another twenty-five 
years. 

But I would say to the laborer and mechanic, 
so far as I am informed in regard to the work- 
ing of your reform movements, you do not 
reach the basic principle underlying the diffi- 
culty which you seek to remedy. To give you 
perm'anent relief, there must be an increased 
and permanent demand created for the products 
of your labor. Why is the demand not greater 
now? Is it because the people do not want the 
goods which you manufacture? No; it is be- 
cause they can not afford to purchase them. 

Here is a thought for you : When the balance 
of trade turned in our favor, in 1880. it brought 
more money into the country. 1 his enlarged 
the volume in circulation, and thereby increased 
the power of the people to purchase. This in- 
creased power to purchase gave rise to an in- 
creased demand for the products of labor, and 
that, in turn, created a demand for labor itself, 
and, therefore, gave employment and higher 
wages to mechanics, artisans, laborers and pro- 
ducers of every kind. 

Your condition now, as compared with your 
condition under the new regime, may be illus- 
trated by an anecdote, which Henry Clay used 



284 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

to relate, of a conversation he once had with 
an Irishman, in which the Irishman told Mr. 
Clay that he could buy as much in the old 
country for a sixpence as he could here for a 
dollar. Mr. Clay asked him why he did not 
return to the old country. "But," said the 
Irishman, "the divil of it is to get the sixpence 
in the old country." The Irishman's situation 
is illustrative of that of the mechanic. When 
money is plenty, wages are high, and provis- 
ions dear, the mechanic can live more comfort- 
ably, save more, and enjoy more than he can 
when money is scarce, business moderate, and 
provisions low. In fact, the only time when 
the American laborer ever really flourished, 
was when our volume of money was large and 
everything was high ; then the prudent toilers 
were surrounding themselves with the comforts 
of life and securing homes for their families. 

Then it was that Shylock; with his merciless 
contraction policy, arrested the toiler in the 
midst of his prosperity, threw him out of em- 
ployment, banished happiness from the bosom 
of his family, made his days weary with anxiety 
and his nights heavy with grief. 

With reference to the last clause in the third 
plank in the new platform, it is only necessary 
to say that, under the glorious reign of Dr. 



AS A NATION. 285 

Franklin's system of money, it was found nec- 
essary for the prosperity and happiness of the 
people to forbid wealthy corporations to take 
out money in large amounts for the purpose 
of absorbing and controlling it, and it is safe to 
say that capitalists are no better now than they 
were then ; consequently they should be under 
the same restrictions. 

FOURTH PLANK IN THE NEW PLATFORM. 

I would suggest that the fourth plank in the 
new platform, demand that the veto power be 
taken from the President. Let those who 
doubt the necessity for this change in our pres- 
ent mode of making laws, read the following, 
which I copy from the Kansas City Journal, of 
January i6, 1882 : 

PLUMB ON FINANCE. 

**A special telegram to the Chicago Tribune gives a 
synopsis of Senator Plumb's speech. He surprised some 
of his Republican friends by his unreserve in talking out 
in meeting. He related that recently a national banker, 
living in an interior State, had said to him in substance: 
After the funding bill of last session was passed, some of 
us bankers were misled into the belief that the bill com- 
pelled banks then holding 4 and 4-2- per cent, bonds as a 
basis of circulation to replace them with 2 per cents. 
Some of us got together and joined in a telegram to Pres- 
ident Hayes urging him to veto the measure. We after- 



286 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING^ 

ward found out we were wrong ; and I have never regretted 
anything more than the sending of that telegram. The 
defeat of that bill w^as the w^orst thing that has ever hap- 
pened to the banks ; it was the first step tow^ard their down- 
fall. He also said that General Grant wrote a letter to 
President Hayes urging him to veto the bill." 

Think a moment! A bill has passed Con- 
gress lowering the rate of interest on bonds, 
but being against the interest of the banks, a 
few bankers, with General Grant, command 
President Hayes to veto the bill and he obeys 
them. 

Does not this transaction present a dark pic- 
ture of the depravity of Grant, Hayes and the 
banking fraternity ? Who can read it without 
a chill of horror? Who can contemplate it 
without sad misgivings for the future safety of 
our country? Who can reflect upon it and 
not feel the pressing necessity for a movement 
that will destroy the power of the moneyed 
interests and its base allies to toy with the peo- 
ple's most sacred rights, and to outrage the 
spirit of Constitutional and Republican liberty? 
This action of Grant, Hayes and the bankers, 
show what kind of a government we have 
been living under since death chilled the great 
heart of Lincoln. 

Rutherford B. Hayes and U. S. Grant once 
had reputations for honesty, and no doubt they 



AS A NATION., 287 

were once patriots. But office power and 
money corrupted them till they became pliant 
tools of a heardess and unpatriotic money 
power, and interposed their veto to thwart the 
clearly expressed will of the people, an act 
which the crowned head of Great Britain has 
not dared to do for more than a century. The 
temptation and fall of Hayes and Grant is a 
sad truth that ought to convince our people 
that the veto pgwer is dangerous in the hands 
of the President. Important measures, espe- 
cially those in the interest of the people, usually 
pass Congress by small majorities, hence the 
inconsistency, not to say despotism, of allow- 
ing one man to interfere and defeat a measure, 
however important, unless a two-third vote can 
be secured to pass it over his veto. If it be 
urged that the veto power, in the hands of the 
President, be necessary to check hasty and 
unwise legislation, I then ask how it comes 
that one man is more competent to check hasty 
and unwise legislation, because he happens to 
be President, than a majority of the people's 
representatives, who happen not to be Presi- 
dent, but each of whom are likely to possess 
ability and patriotism equal to the President? 
If we could always have Washingtons and 
Lincolns for Presidents, the veto power would 



288 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

be safe in their hands. But, unfortunately, we 
are sometimes obliged to manufacture Presi- 
dents from very different material, as our polit- 
ical history clearly demonstrates. When a few 
bankers can thwart the will of this mighty na- 
tion with a single telegram to our President, it 
is high time that the avenue through which they 
can approach the citadel of our liberties and 
commit such dastardly outrages upon our rights 
be closed against them That avenue is the 
veto power in the hands of the President. 
That principle in our Government which gives 
the President the power to overcome the clearly 
expressed will of the American people by a 
stroke of his pen, and the money power an 
opportunity to stop the wheels, or maybe ruin 
the Government by influencing one man, is a 
monarchial relic of barbarism, unfit for this day 
and age, and should at once be eliminated from 
our system of Government. Many of our peo- 
ple appear to have a wrong idea of the theory 
of our governmental system. Robert Inger- 
soll, in speaking of our President, said: 

" We want the man whom w^ elect for our head to have 
the army in one hand and the navy in the other, and to 
execute the supreme will of the supreme people." 

It seems not to have occurred to Mr. Inger- 
soll that that power might be used to thwart 



AS A NATION. 289 

the will of the people and overthrow the gov- 
ernment. All history speaks in thunder tones 
against clothing one man with any such author- 
ity. Then, too, the theory of our government 
is not to elect a man for our head, although 
practically we do so. Theoretically we are the 
head, and the President our servant ; but prac- 
tically the President is in a great degree the head, 
and we the servants. We may struggle ever so 
hard, and w^in a majority in favor of a correct and 
vital principle, and get it through the National 
Legislature even, then the President, if he sees 
fit, can veto it, and nothing but a two thirds 
vote of Congress can make it a law. Now, 
what we want is to make the people absolutely 
the head, and the President absolutely their 
servant. To this end we will strip him of the 
appointing and veto power. When this is con- 
summated, our Presidential elections will be 
conducted in a less rancorous and vindictive 
spirit, for the simple reason that whoever is 
elected can not accommodate the office-seekers, 
nor grant favors to the money power. If we 
would put a stop to the bribery, fraud and lying 
that now characterizes our Presidential cam- 
paigns — if we would remove every obstacle to 
the full effect of the clearly expressed will of 
the American people — if we would place our 
19— D. 



290 WHITHER. ARE WE DRIFTING 

liberties beyond the dangerous touch of one- 
man power — we must prohibit our President 
from appointing our officers and vetoing our 
laws. 

THE FIFTH PLANK IN TJIF NEW PLATFORM 

It may be said that after we have the choos- 
ing of all our officers, and strip the President 
of the veto power, our liberties will still be in- 
secure, from the fact that capitalists can influ- 
ence Congress to make laws in their interest. 
All this is true — sadly true. We have always 
had some great and good men in Congress, 
but the majority are neither good nor great. 
Then, too, their number is small. The capital- 
ists of the country outnumber them more than 
a thousand to one. It is a moral hero indeed, 
who can resist the importunities, threatenings 
and money of a thousand men who can come 
into his presence, besiege him day and night, 
and use the press to abuse and misrepresent 
him to his constituents in case he refuses to do 
their bidding. If he caters to capital, riches 
and eminence are his. If he stands by the 
people, he must remain in poverty, and his road 
to eminence is dark and dreary, if indeed he 
reaches it at all. Sometimes the capitalists 
would undoubtedly find it profitable to make 
our entire Congress rich in order to secure the 



AS A NATION, 29 1 

passage of a single bill in their interests. It is 
idle to talk of security for our institutions, or 
continued legislation in the interest of labor, 
while our law makers are exposed to such tre- 
mendous temptations to legislate in the interest 
of capital and centralization. 

Where, then, is our security? It is in plac- 
ing the veto power In the hands of the people. 
The capitalists may induce a majority of our 
Congress to vote against the people's interests. 
But they can not induce a majority of the peo- 
ple to vote against their own interests. The 
capitalists may make a majority of Congress 
rich, but they can not make a majority of 
the American people rich. Almighty God has 
graciously forbidden it by withholding from 
the country a sufficient amount of material 
wealth. At least ninety per cent, of our peo- 
ple must always remain in moderate circum- 
stances at most. Their interests will always 
be the Interests of the many. They will al- 
ways love freedom and hate despotism. They 
will always be opposed to favoritism and a 
privileged class in the Government. For their 
safety, and the safety of our institutions I would 
place the veto power In the hands of the peo- 
ple. To that end I would suggest that the 
fourth plank in the platform of the new party 



292 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

demand that no act of Congress shall take ef- 
fect until the people first have an opportunity 
to veto it. 

This is the case in Switzerland, and it is due 
to this fact that the Swiss Republic has stood 
so long and so securely amid the despotisms 
that surround her. Her people have the veto 
power in their own hands, consequently her 
capitalists can not barter her liberties away, 
appropriate her wealth, nor bind her with a 
single law without the direct consent of her 
people. The same plan was suggested more 
than one hundred years ago by one of the 
founders of this Government, in the following 
words : 

" Congress must not be permitted to make laws, only to 
propose them, and the people to ratify them." 

A grand idea, worthy of the great mind and 
great heart of the author hero of the American 
revolution. 

In my judgment this proposition contains 
more of the principles and elements of human 
progress, security and happiness than has been 
contained in a single proposition since the 
Declaration of American Independence, partly 
inspired by the same mind, burst like a meteor 
upon the astonished gaze of a doubting world. 



AS A NATION. 293 

In fact, it Is another Declaration of American 
Independence, complete and absolute, and if 
ratified by the people, liberty will have achieved 
such a triumph as the world has never yet wit- 
nessed. In the course of human events it fell 
to the lot of the founders of this republic, to 
strike a mightier blow at despotism and cen- 
tralized Government than any equal number 
of men ever had the power or opportunity to 
strike before. Thanks to them and the power 
that nerved their arm, they struck and struck 
manfully. They broke through the tyrannical 
customs of their age. They disregarded the 
threats of kings abroad and the admonitions 
of hesitating friends at home. They saw the 
opportunity to do something grand for their 
country and humanity, and they embraced it. 
They rose majestically on the wings of duty. 
Self faded away in the distance ; they encoun- 
tered and rolled back the clouds of despotism 
that had so long darkened the tiresome path- 
way of human endeavor. Those clouds are 
again appearing; already their hideous heads 
frown above our political horizon. A duty as 
high and imperative, an opportunity as great 
and glorious as the fathers ever knew, now lies 
before the American patriot. It is in the 
power of this generation to again beat those 



294 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

clouds back to their dark, damp, native cav- 
erns, to show their ugly shapes no more in the' 
serene blue of our own lovely Western sky.. 
This can be accomplished by taking up free- 
dom's banner where the fathers left it, and 
bear it on as they undoubtedly intended we 
should, and expected we v/ould. That our 
forefathers did not believe that they had 
reached the acme of perfection in human gov- 
ernment, is evident from the fact that they 
made provisions for amending the Constitution 
to keep pace with the growing necessities 
of. a great and progressive nation, and to meet 
contingencies which no human wisdom could 
foresee. There were giants in those days, and 
our forefathers were very wise, but their wis- 
dom was not infinite; consequently they could 
not be expected to establish a perfect govern- 
ment. 

Then, too, they Vv^ere prohibited by their im- 
mediate surroundings from establishing a gov- 
ernment up to their highest ideal of perfection. 
They had many opposing forces, even in their 
own midst Hamilton, and many strong men 
who had been active in the war against En- 
gland, on account of her oppression of the col- 
onies, still believed in a monarchy. On the 
other hand was the mighty and patriotic Henry, 



AS A NATION. 295 

and other thorouorh Republicans, who believed 
that each State should be sovereign in its own 
capacity, without any reference whatever to a 
central government. Such opposed the ratifi- 
cation of the Constitution for Irs centralizing 
tendencies. Then there was the Abolitionist, 
and the friend of the American slave system, 
who had stood shoulder to shoulder in the 
struggle for independence. All these discord- 
ant elements had to be reconciled and brought 
together to sign and ratify the i. onstltutlon, 
which was to be the fundamental law of the 
land. 

These facts render It unquestlonabl'". that the 
Constitution of the United States, as it came 
from the hands of the fathers, was the result of 
many concessions on their parr. 

Then, too, when we remember that all the 
framers of that immortal instrument were fresh 
from the arms of monarchy, consequently un 
skilled In Republican government, we can only 
wonder that such circumstances could o-ive birth 
to a government so perfect and so pregnant 
with Democratic principles. Yet a careful an- 
alysis of our system, as compared with the 
limited monarchy of Great Britain, reveals th.e 
fact that the fathers gave us a o^overnment 
hardly less despotic In many respects than the 
one against which they had rebelled. 



296 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The greatest safeguard against despotism 
given us by our fathers, and their greatest 
achievement in the interest of freedom, was in 
making provision for the frequent return o^ all 
political power to the people. This was the 
crowning glory of their success. This is the 
distinguishing feature between our Government 
and that of England. We can change our rep- 
resentatives, senators and presidents, and it is 
a glorious privilege purchased with patriotic 
blood. It is the fathers' most precious gift to 
us, their children. It is a priceless heritage. 
May God grant that it may ever be ours to en- 
joy. But priceless and precious as it is, it is 
not a perfect remedy — only a sweet relief. It 
is a strong defense against despotism, the 
strongest within reach of the fathers at the 
time they gave it. But it is not a complete 
safeguard. The power to change officers once 
in a" term of years gives us an opportunity to 
rid ourselves of burdens which, if they see fit, 
they may heap upon us. 

It does not, however, prevent another set of 
officers from placing other burdens upon us 
just as heavy to bear. If we change the offi 
cers, others take their places, with the same 
incentives to despotic action. The new officers 
are surroimdedby the same temptations through 



AS A NATION. 297 

which the old ones fell ; Congress has the same 
inducement to corrupt the President; the Pres- 
ident has the same inducement to corrupt 
Congress. While the moneyed interests and 
monopolies have the same inducement to cor- 
rupt the whole law-making power. No amount 
of watchfulness on the part of the people can 
prevent legislation in the interests of capital 
while Congress is permitted to make laws with- 
out the direct consent of the people and the 
President retains the veto power. Can we 
wonder that the good Lincoln warned us to 
teware, or capital would heap disabilities upon 
us till all of liberty should be lost? Such re- 
sults flow from our system of law-making as 
naturally as rivers flow toward the sea. In- 
deed, no other results can follow. They may 
be delayed for a time, as they were during the 
first fifty years of our existence as a nation, 
but their coming Is certain. The framers of 
•our constitution were men of great power and 
exalted goodness. They could and did ( not 
without difficulty, however), stay the tide of 
corruption with which unscrupulous politicians 
at times sought to deluge the country. Those 
old patriots have passed away from the scenes 
of their fierce conflicts and glorious triumphs. 
A new set of men have come upon the stage, 



29S WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

and are playing a new play in the fitful drama 
of American politics. The difference in the 
moral of the plays is distinctly seen in the part 
acted by the prominent leaders at the respect- 
ive periods, and which may be summed up in 
these words of historic truth: General Wash- 
ington refused a third term; General Grant 
sought it. These two significant facts mark 
but too clearly the painful difference in the 
aspirations and purposes of the political move- 
ments oi' 1882 and those of 1782. The former 
have taken advantage of the confidence the 
people had in better men They have con- 
trolled the press, and so shaped legislation that 
the unparalleled reward that American indus- 
try has yielded, is flying to the pockets of the 
few, and every day the gap widens between 
capital and labor. Poverty increases in the 
midst of plenty, while millionaires and rich 
idlers are multiplying on" every hand. The 
truth is. a majority of once happy homes are 
being in a great measure shorn of comfort, and 
the once free inmates are being rapidly chained 
down to drudgery. In fact, our country seems 
to have reached her turning point, and seems 
about to confirm the oft-repeated assertion that 
history repeats itself, and all republics relapse 
into despotism Indeed, who that has rum- 



AS A NATION. 299 

maged among the dusty records of bygone 
centuries in search of the evidence of man's 
capacity for self-government, that has not, at 
times, felt the force and gloom of the thought 
that liberty is only for a da)^ — that, like the 
seasons, it has its Spring, Summer, Autumn, 
Winter and decay, ending precisely where it be- 
gan ? And if it start again, it is only to traverse 
the same circle back to the same fatal point. 
Why does the voice of all history seem to con- 
firm this unhappy view of the case? WHiy has 
man in his struggles for liberty failed to make 
a more encouraging record? Why have repub- 
lics sprang into existence, dazzled the world 
for a day with their great achievements, and 
then relapsed into despotism and centralized 
Government? 

Is it because the majority of mankind do not 
desire to be free? Far from it. The desire to 
be free dwells in the breast of every civilized 
man. It springs spontaneously from his very 
nature, and thrills his whole being. 

Does man lack the capacity for self govern- 
ment? Not at all; only as the child lacks the 
capacity to walk until it first learns to stand on 
its feet. The fact that it stao-orers and falls and 
gets many a hurt before it can walk unaided, 
does not prove that it lacks the capacity to 



300 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

learn to walk. Experience and perseverance 
are all that is needed. It continues its timid 
efforts and finally the natural desire to walk 
alone overcomes its fear; it lets go its hold on its 
mother's hand and strides forth confident and 
happy, as it might have done long before, had it 
not so feared the first step. The same is true 
of man's experience in Republican Government. 
The masses have never learned to stand fully 
and fairly upon their own feet and govern 
themiSelves entirely. On the contrary, they 
have leaned on the rich, who have very strong 
inducements to deceive them. They have left 
too much to the discretion of their representa- 
tives. The law-making power is too far from 
them, and the inducements to corrupt it too 
many. Hence, the tendency 0'( Republican 
Governments to relapse into despotism. Hence, 
the tendency of our own Government to cen- 
tralization. Hence it is that every year brings 
ns more millionaires and more paupers. Hence 
it is that human- society appears to move in a 
circle. 

Now, my countrymen, it is in our power to 
present the world with a republic as enduring 
as the earth itself. Ours has the noble frame- 
work. It only needs bracing. It has the fund- 
amental principles. We need only to destroy 



AS A NATION. 3OI 

the one corrupting germ, viz.: the power ot 
Congress to make laws; or, in other words, to 
take the veto power from the President and 
give it to the people. This will change at once 
and forever the tendency of our Government 
to centralization. This will put an everlasting 
veto on class legislation. When the veto power 
is placed in the hands of the people the capi- 
talists and bad politicians will have no induce- 
ments to send a purchasable man to Congress, 
because he can make no law in their interest 
which the people can not veto. Then, too, the 
new policy will have the effect to keep the cor- 
rupt capitalists out of Congress. There are 
many good and noble wealthy men In this coun- 
try, and one of that class may occasionally get 
into Congress, and there labor for the best in- 
terests of his country. But, as a rule, capital- 
ists are in Congress, not to look after the inter- 
est of the country, not for the salary even, (for 
it costs most of them more than 'their salary 
amounts to to get there), but to look after their 
own pecuniary interests. They expect to reap 
their reward in the effect their legislation will 
have upon the value of their bonds, bank, rail- 
road, mining and other stock in which their 
millions are invested. The new policy places 
the American people between them and the 



302 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

accomplishment of their base desires, and re- 
moves all inducements for them to go to Con- 
gress for purposes other than for their own 
honor and the good of their country. 

I will here state that" the veto power in the 
hands of the people will add but a trifle to the 
cost of elections, and no extra expense for bal- 
lots, and no more frequent voting. The acts of 
Congress become binding precisely as they do 
now, unless the people see fit to veto them. 
At the first general election after the adjourn- 
ment of Congress, if any act has passed that 
any man wishes to veto, he writes the title of 
the act upon his ballot, and the word No oppo- 
site, and his veto is recorded. 

I would say also that in case of war or other 
emergency, when laws need to be enacted faster 
than they can be conveniently ratified as here- 
inbefore provided, the people may allow Con- 
gress, for a limited time, to enact them as it 
does at present; provided, however, that the 
power to remove public officers by a two-thirds 
vote remain with the people intact. 

Let us consider the effect of the new policy 
upon the individual citizen. 

Election day has come. The ballots are 
printed and in the hands of the people. The 
Congressional Record is in every postoffice. 



AS A NATION. 303 

Every voter has either read or heard read, and 
discussed every law over and over again. He 
understands their meaning. He has made up 
his mind how he will vote. He runs his eye 
down the list, passing, perhaps, a dozen acts be- 
fore he comes to one he wishes to veto. Finally 
his eye falls upon an infamous act, like several 
passed by our last Congress. One of which 
granted a pension of five thousand dollars a 
year to Mrs. Garfield. Here I imagine he so- 
liloquizes as did the Iowa soldier, a part of 
whose letter I here copy: 

*'I am following the cultivator in small corn, and no 
very flattering prospects for a crop. I got very naturally 
into contrasting my condition with that of some other peo- 
ple, and wondered how my wife would fare if I should be 
taken away. Then I could not but think of Mrs. Garfield. 
A New York paper, speaking of Mrs. Garfield, says : * She 
has $300,000 in government bonds, the result of subscrip- 
tion. Her husband's life was insured for $50,000, which 
she promptly received. She also received the President's 
salary for the unoccupied first year, amounting to about 
$20,000; then add to that $30,000, the value of Garfield's 
estate ; that makes $400,000. Now the income from this 
sum will not be far from $1(),000 a year. Most people 
woukl tliiuk that a comfortable income. Now, you men 
that labor take heed. After having all the doctors' bills 
paid, this woman is given a pension of $5,000 a year, 
which is $13.79 per day for every day in the year. Now, 
you men that plow and grub for 75 cents to 81 per ihiy, 
study over this matter.'" 



304 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

The soldier here quoted has taken a correct 
view of the case as far as he has gone. But 
he has only considered his own present condi- 
tion and that of his own wife, should he be 
taken away, and contrasted it with that of Mrs. 
Garfield. The contrast is certainly very strik- 
ing, and furnishes the soldier a just and power- 
ful reason for his opposition to the bill granting 
Mrs. Garfield a pension. Now, place the veto 
power in the hands of the people, and the sol- 
dier will go further and see more. He will feel 
his responsibility in the matter and search 
after duty. His mind will go beyond the nar- 
row limits of his own family or business inter- 
ests, and roam far and wide over the land. 
On the wings of thought he will hover over 
our cities and see a hundred thousand children 
go supperless to bed. In yonder garret sits a 
widow, pale and wan and feeble; her health 
has broken down beneath the burden of a fam- 
ily of children made fatherless by war ; her 
pension too scant to procure her comfortable 
quarters, wholesome food, or proper care. 
The angel of death lingers to bear her away 
from her sufferings. Now, says the soldier : 
" The scanty feathers which adorn that widow's 
bonnet, and considerable of her other wearing 
apparel, yea, her sugar and many of the other 



AS A NATION. 305 

necessaries of life, are imported either in whole, 
or in part, and are taxed to pay the expenses of 
the Government. If I vote to give Mrs. Gar- 
field a pension of thirteen dollars a day, that 
suffering widow must pay a part of it. I can 
not vote for it. My duty to my kind and my 
country forbid it." 

From a million desolate homes, where pov- 
erty and hunger reigns, there comes a volce^ 
like the voice of God, saying : " If the Gov- 
ernment pensions anybody on the people's 
earnings, let it be the needy poor." The sol- 
dier writes the title of this law upon his ballot, 
and the word No, as a rebuke to the inconsid- 
erate baseness of an aristocratic Congress. 
Mrs. Garfield had more already than ever justly 
belonged to her. To give her more was to rob 
the poor to give to the rich. A monarchlal 
practice lately adopted by our Government. 
The people will not regard as cumbersome 
or expensive, anything that will enable them 
to put a stop to the infamous and liberty 
destroying practice. 

The veto power in the hands of the people 
will transfer discussion from the domain of 
party to the domain of law. There Is not a 
rural school district in the United States In 
which every voter does not attend school mcet- 
20— D. 



306 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ing when the question to be settled is the ap- 
propriation of money to build a new school- 
house. Why is it that the people turn out and 
manifest so much interest on such occasions? 
It is simply because every voter feels that his 
family, his pride and his pocket is to be affected 
directly by his vote. This stimulates him to 
know the size of the proposed building, the 
kind of lumber to be used in its construction, 
its exact cost, where it is to be located, and 
whether or not there is jobbery about it. Then 
he votes understandingly, guarding well his own 
interests. Such will be the relations of the 
people to the government and laws under the 
new system. The Congressional Record in ev- 
ery postoffice will contain all the plans and 
specifications, together with full explanations 
from both the friends and enemies of the pro- 
posed measure. Then the people will discuss 
the whole subject and vote as their own interests 
dictate, not caring who proposed the law. Un- 
der this law party lines will fade away; the 
people will defy the wiles of the press and pol- 
iticians to deceive them, and the rights of labor 
will be recognized by the law making power. 

I wish to make one more illustration, showing 
the effect of the veto power in the hands of the 
people. To make it plain, I will make a brief 
statement of the nature of 



^: AS A NATION. 307 

THE NATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM. 

The money power has several contrivances 
for absorbing the people's earnings, either 
of which, if permitted to remain in operation, 
will make an Ireland of this country within the 
next forty years. Of these contrivances, the na- 
tional banking system is one of the most potent. 
The law authorizing national banks provides 
that persons, not less than five in number, with 
a capital of not less than $50,000, may deposit 
government bonds in the United States Treas- 
ury, and the Secretary thereof shall issue to 
such association of persons 90 per cent, of the 
value of their bonds in national bank currency. 
The Government furnishes said 90 per cent, all 
printed, stamped and ready for use (except 
signing). I'his currency the banks loan to the 
people at rates of interest ranging from 6 to 
24 per cent. On the money so loaned the 
Government imposes a tax of i per cent, per 
annum, which only a little more than covers 
the cost of furnishing said money. In addition 
to this, the Government pays the banker inter- 
est on his bonds deposited to secure his circu- 
lation. 

If the farmer could have such privileges as 
the national banks have, he could mortgage 
his ten thousand dollar farm to the Govern- 



308 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

ment foi: nine thousand dollars, and loan that 
money to the people at from six to twenty four 
per cent., and all he would need to pay the 
Government would be a tax of one per cent. 
on the amount loaned. Then, the Government 
would also pay him interest on his whole farm, 
as it does the banker on his bonds; and, in 
addition to all this, the Government would ex- 
empt his farm from taxation, National, State, 
and municipal. 

Would not that be a glorious privilege for 
the farmer? But farmers should remember 
that they have sent bankers to Congress, who, 
naturally enough, have made laws in their own 
interests. 

We will now suppose our new platform to be 
in full force. Congress has passed a law re- 
chartering the national banks for twenty years, 
as our Congress has recently done. The na- 
tional banker solicits Farmer Towsides to ratify 
the law. The national banker we will desig- 
nate by the letters *' N. B." 

N. B. Mr. Towsides, I suppose you are 
aware that Congress has passed a law rechar- 
tering the national banks for twenty years? 

Towsides. Yes, sir. ji^ Since the veto power 
has been placed in the hands of the people and 
the Congressional Record in every postoffice. we 



AS A NATION. 309 

farmers are keeping posted on the doings of 
Congress; we feel that our vote acts directly 
on our own interest now, and that we can not 
afford, to be ignorant. But under the old regime 
we did not think it worth while to know much 
about politics. We did not feel that our votes 
affected the laws very much, so we thought we 
might about as well elect one man to office as 
another, for by the time he got duly installed 
therein, the capitalists would either buy or 
frighten him into their service. Then, too, the 
newspapers and the speakers could put just 
such a face on things as they saw fit, and we 
could not tell whether their statements were 
true or false, and the Congressmen could make 
such laws as they saw fit, and we could not 
help ourselves. The influence of the money 
power could contract the currency and send our 
prices down. Railroad corporations could seize 
our lands, and we would know nothing about it 
until it was too late. Our law making power 
was too far from us, and our opportunities to 
get correct information were insufficient. But 
now the Congressional Record is where we can 
see it every day, and the consequence is, 1 un- 
derstanci the national banking law lately passed 
by Congress. What did you wish to say about 
it, sir? 



3IO WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

N. B. I have come to ask you if you will 
endorse the action of Congress, sp far as re- 
lates to the rechartering of the national banks ? 

Towsides. No, sir; I will not. And before 
I say more in justification of my blunt answer 
to your question, I wish to remark that never 
have I felt so deeply as I do now the importance 
of that particular plank in the platform of the 
new party, which declares that any officer in 
the Government may be removed by a two- 
thirds v.ote of the district that elected him. 
The triumph of this principle in American pol- 
itics will make the officers of the Government 
really the servants of the people, to be dis- 
charged when they fail to do their master's 
will. Under such a policy Congressmen will 
not only fear to pass unjust laws, but they will 
fear to neglect to pass such laws as the people 
demand, lest such negligence cost them their 
seat. And, sir, if ever a set of men deserved 
to be discharged, and have their pay stopped, 
and they branded as unworthy servants, it is 
those tools of the money power in Congress 
who voted for the rechartering of the national 
banks. 

N. B. You seem to be very much opposed to 
the national banking system. 

Towsides. Yes, sir; I am, and I confess 



AS A NATION. 3II 

that I feel chagrined at the course I have pur- 
sued for the last twenty years. 

N. B. I do not understand you, sir. You 
have borrowed money at my bank ; we charged 
you ten per cent, interest, the same as we 
charged others. You made money out of the 
operation. You got your land paid for, and 
have since deposited money with me. Was 
there anything wrong in that transaction? 
Pray tell me what you have done at which you 
feel chagrined ? 

Towsides. I will soon tell you, sir. You 
say you loaned me money. Where did you 
get the money which you loaned to me? 

N. B. I got it of the Government. 

Towsides. Very well, sir ; the government 
is the people, and I am the people, collectively 
speaking. So really you get the money from 
me. Do you remember what you paid me for 
the use of that money? 

N. B. Yes. sir; I paid you (the govern- 
ment) a tax of one per cent. 

Towsides. Do you remember what rate of 
interest you charged me when I borrowed that 
money back from you ? 

N. B. Yes, sir; I charged you ten per 
cent., the same as I charged others. 

Towsides. Well, now sir, I am chagrined 



312 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

that I, in effect, loaned you money at one per 
cent., and borrowed it back again and paid 
you ten per cent, for the use of it. Now, 
another question : why did yon loan me that 
money ? 

^. B. The one great reason was because I 
knew you owned property enough to render 
the debt secure. 

Towsides. In other words, my property was 
your security, was it not? 

N. B. Yes, sir. 

Towsides. Did you pay me interest on that 
security while I owed you the debt? 

N. B. Of course not; I could not live at 
that; besides, it would look rather odd for the 
borrower to give security for money, and then 
receive interest from the lender on that secur^ 
ity." It would not be business-like; do you 
think it would, Mr. Towsides? 

Towsides. No, sir, I do not ; and right here 
I have a question for you : When you bor- 
rowed that money of the Government, or, 
rather, of me (the people), to loan to me, what 
security did you give? 

* N. B. I gave United States bonds for se- 
curity. 

Towsides. Did you draw interest from me 
(the people) on those bonds while they re- 



AS A NATION. 313 

malned with the Government as security for 
that money? 

N. B. Yes, sir. 

Towsides. Now, sir, do you think I (the 
people) can live at that? Do you think that 
looks business like on my part ? Do you won- 
der that I am chagrined at such a business 
transaction as that? Can I live by letting you 
have money for a Httle more than it costs to 
print it, take your bonds for security and con- 
tinue to pay you interest on that security, and 
then pay you ten per cent, for the use of 
money besides, making in all nearly fifteen per 
cent ? Why sir, a part of the money which I 
borrowed of you went to pay taxes, which you 
should and would have paid if your bonds had 
been taxable the same as my farm. Another 
part went to pay store bills, which I was 
obliged to contract in consequence of having 
lost my crop by grasshoppers the year before. 
I was struggling to get out of debt, and if any- 
body needed money at a low rate of interest, 
it was me, not you. You was able to invest 
a hundred thousand dollars in Government 
bonds; sit in the shade and draw your interest, 
I was toiling in the burning sun on a farm, 
worth perhaps,* a thousand dollars ; receiving 
for my labor barely enough to keep soul and 



314 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

body together, and millions of my, brother 
farmers and laborers were in the same condi- 
tion. Yet you was getting money of us at one 
per cent., and we were borrowing it back at 
ten. Your bonds would have no value were 
it not for my property. They rest upon my 
credit (the credit of the people); so if your 
bonds are good security to the Government 
for money, my land must be doubly so. My 
God, sir, I feel mortified to think 1 have fur- 
nished the money and guaranteed its redemp- 
tion, and then allowed you to step between me 
and the Government and pocket ten per cent, 
interest, till I am nearly ruined. However, 
you stated, if I remember right, that I had had 
money deposited with you? 

N. B. I have been informed that you had 
surplus means, and had deposited some money 
in national banks. 

Towsides. You have been correctly informed, 
sir; I once had a little surplus means. They 
were the result of earnest and persistent toil 
on the part of myself and wife. I had labored 
with determined energy to get out of debt and 
get a little ahead for a rainy day. My noble 
wife, though often faint and weary and worn, 
seconded my every effort. If frost blighted 
our crops or tempests swept them away, trust- 



AS A NATION. 315 

ing in God, we planted again, determined that 
the winter of old age should not find us 
homeless, nor dependent upon others for 
support. Our little farm we intended to give 
to our faithful son as a scanty reward for his 
kindness to us. The little money we had 
saved was intended to clothe us and provide 
medical attendance should we need it when the 
infirmities of age should be upon us, and also to 
defray the expenses of the last necessary attend- 
ance upon our worn-out earthly remains, when 
the spirit should take its flight to realms where 
high rates of interest never rob nor cruel greed 
make hard the pathway of the just. With 
such feelings and purposes we cast about for a 
safe place to deposit our little surplus money, 
that represented so much sweat, toil and anxi- 
ety. I deposited it in a national bank, and I 
never slept more sweetly than I did on the 
night preceding the day that brought the intel- 
ligence that the bank which contained our little 
surplus money had failed. That day I never 
can forget. I remember the look of despair 
that overspread the features of my poor wife 
when I broke the sad intelligence to her. I 
remember how her frame shook as she ex- 
claimed, through pale lips, "My God! is our 
money lost?" and sank into her chair and wept 



3l6 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

the grief she could not utter. I remember her 
recital of the hardships she had endured and 
the sacrifices she had made to help me save that 
money, in the hope that thereby we might keep 
our little farm unincumbered during the evening 
of life, and place ourselves beyond the danger 
of want, should we linger long after our limbs 
refused to obey our will. I remember her look, 
more discouraged than imagination ever pic- 
tured, when she realized that should disease 
seize either of our aged bodies and hold 
it helpless for any considerable length of time. 
Our little farm would be obliged to be mort- 
gaged to raise money to make us comfortable, 
and finally, that, after all our struggles and 
hopes, the winter's storm might yet beat upon 
our houseless heads ere mother earth receives 
us again to her bosom. I am chagrined when 
I rem. ember that I can not borrow money with- 
out giving nearly double security, yet so stupid 
as to deposit my money with you without se- 
curity that amounted to anything. I should 
have remembered that, according to the Comp- 
troller's report, your whole assets, even when 
you fulfill the requirements of the law, are equal 
to only about one-half of your debts. But, 
like other people who have been blinded and 
wrongly educated by the money power, I did 



AS A NATION. 317 

not look at the matter in the right light. I de- 
posited my money in a national bank and lost 
it, and were it not for my poor wife, whose re- 
maining days have been saddened and short- 
ened by it, I should deem it a just, though 
severe punishment for my stupidity in voting 
to set men up in the banking business, furnish 
them the money to bank on, and then permit 
them to so frame the laws that they can per- 
form the villainous trick of robbing me of the 
surplus earnings of a lifetime. 

I ratify the law rechartering the national 
banks? No! By the eternal God, I will 
veto It! 

Here is a fit place for the following: 

HORACE GREELEY ON THE NATIONAL BANKS. 

When Horace Greeley was a candidate for 
the Presidency, he said : 

' ' There was a time v/hen the national banks were a ne- 
cessity, but that time has long since passed away. The 
time now is when something better and cheaper for tiie 
people must take their place. Against this, of course, the 
banker and bondholder will protest, and the moneyed in- 
terests will oppose my election to the Presidency." 

The following letter, written by Mr. Greeley 
in 1872, which I am creditably informed was 
made publicby the Hon. E. H. Gillett, of Icwa, 
shall find a place here also : 



3l8 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

*'We have stricken the shackles from four millions of 
human beings, and brought all laborers to a common level; 
but not so much by elevating the former slaves as by prac- 
tically reducing the whole working population, white and 
black, to a state of serfdom. While boasting of our noble 
deeds we are careful to conceal the ugly fact, that by our 
iniquitous monetary system we have practically nationalized 
a system of oppression which, though more refined, is only 
less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery." 

From the above quotations you will see why 
the money power set its press to abuse, and let 
loose its army of demagogues to howl at the 
heels of Horace Greeley. They feared an hon- 
est and capable friend of the people in the 
presidential chair. They knew that the elec- 
tion of Horace Greeley meant the destruction 
of their pet system of legalized robbery, and 
the overthrow of the national banking system ; 
and when that was threatened, neither virtue, 
nor patriotism, nor a long Hfe of usefulness, 
were considered for one moment. All his good 
acts were immediately forgotten. To threaten 
the national banking system was an offense 
which no number of noble deeds, nor any sum of , 
human greatness and goodness, could atone for. 
The money power and its hirelings rushed upon 
him, as the rude waves rush upon the ship 
foundering in a gale, till the great heart that 
knew no hate was rent w.ith the grief of the 
patriot, and ceased to beat forever. 



AS A NATION. 319 

You who doubt the necessity for the veto 
power in the hands of the people should con- 
sider the following- proposition : You have a 
farm of one million acres, manufactories of va- 
rious kinds, ships at sea, etc., to the extent that 
a large number of men are required to do your 
business. You are supposed to be the "boss," 
as the saying is. But you select, say twenty 
men — we will call them law-makers — whose 
office it will be to make rules and regulations 
for the proper carrying on of this immense busi- 
ness. Some of the law-makers you choose for 
two, some for four and some for six years, giv- 
ing them full authority to make such laws as 
they see fit, and you consent to be governed by 
them. If they are oppressive you can not help 
yourselves. You can not repeal laws nor re- 
move the makers until their term expires. 
They can issue money to themselves at one 
per cent,, and then compel you to pay ten per 
cent, for the use of it. They can join railroad 
corporations and deed themselves your land. 
They can sell your, ships and distribute your 
manufactured goods as they see fit. They can 
appoint as many clerks as they like, pay them 
such wages as they choose, and draw on you 
for the amount. They can raise their own sal- 
aries as high as they please and pay themselves 



320 WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING 

from your drawer. They can purchase worth- 
less property at an enormous price, draw your 
check for the amount, and slyly divide the 
profits with the vender. Now, sirs, who is con- 
trolling this business, you or the law-makers? 

And how long can you expect to remain in 
possession of your property? Does not all his- 
tory, all experience, and your own common 
sense tell you that such management will very 
soon ruin you ? Capitalists will tamper with 
your law-makers, your goods will disappear you 
know not where, your lands will find their way 
into the hands of wealthy corporations, and you 
be left homeless wanderers upon the earth. 
Now, sirs, this Government is beinor carried on 
upon precisely that principle, gnd every day she 
is nearing her downfall. She contains within 
herself the seeds of her dissolution, and is fast 
going the way of all republics. Our theory of 
a representative government is beautiful, but 
practically we are drifting toward a despotism. 
The interests of the people are not represented 
in the councils of the nation, nor never can be 
for any great length of time under the present 
system. 

Let us form a party upon a platform of prin- 
ciples that shall usher jn a new era in repub- 
lican government, and give the world a glorious 



AS A NATION. 32 I 

example of **a government of the people, by 
the people and for the people." 

To do this, the Constitution will need to be 
amended, and, since we have amended it once 
to secure the rights of the colored race, shall 
we not amend it again to secure the rights of 
both races, and save the Republic ? 

The success of the policy which I have out- 
lined will make the American people the sov- 
ereign rulers of their own political destiny, the 
absolute judges and dictators of their own 
rights, and the unquestioned guardians of their 
own liberties. Fix the purpose and fire the 
great American mind with this grand idea, and 
the people's march to power is certain, speedy 
and irresistible. 

[i No man admitting the right and capacity of 
the people to govern themselves can object to 
this platform. It contains the only principle 
that can give us a government "of the people, 
by the people, and for the people." I see no 
other way inj which the people can obtain that 
glorious result, which should be the end and 
aim of all Republican government, viz.: to have 
the same laws enacted that they themselves 
would enact, 'provided they could all assemble 
in one place for that purpose. I see no other 
21— D. 



32;2 WHITHER A^RE WE :t5RIFTING 

foundatio?! lipon which Amerlcah liberty cam 
rest securely, l i 

The foregoing platform embraces the one 
issue vital to American Uberty, viz.: Shall the 
American people continue to be ruled by capi- 
ital? All other questions are of minor import- 
ance. The railroad and transportation ques- 
tion, the telegraph monopoly, the eight-hour 
labor question, the female suffrage questiori, 
the temperance problem, the convict-labor 
question, the Chinese immigration question, 
and scores of others, all more or less import- 
ant, perhaps, and all engaging the attention of 
the voting masses in a greater or less degree, 
but which can be reached with great difficulty 
if, indeed, they can be reached at all, under the 
present regime. The capitalists can influence 
legislators to dally and pass obstructive laws. 
The one way to reach all questions concerning 
labor and the public welfare with dispatch and 
certainty is to place the governing power abso- 
lutely in the hands of the people. 

In conclusion, I will quote a sentence penned 
by Thomas Jefferson, one of the grandest fig- 
iires in all history, and who, could he have had 
his way, would have had our liberties better 
guarded than they now are. The following 
are his words : 



AS A NATION. 323 

** I am not among those who fear the people. They and 
not the rich are our dependence for continued freedom." 

Mother earth never nurtured a purer patriot, 
nor did the world ever know a wiser statesman 
than Thomas Jefferson. And that mighty pro- 
duct of his mind (the Declaration of American 
Independence), sparkling with genius, aglow 
with patriotism, and breathing thoughts that 
gave a nation birth, contains no grander senti- 
ment than the one just quoted. It is the testi- 
mony of all history, the lesson of all expe- 
rience ; and I here venture the prediction that 
the first Convention that places itself squarely 
on a platform embodying this principle, and 
none other, will rear for itself a monument 
grander and more enduring than ever towered 
in marble. 







AS A NATION, 



AND 



THE NEW^ ERA 



IN 



REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT. 



By 

FREEMAN O. WILLEY. 



INDIANAPOLIS: 

\VM. B. BORFORD, PRINTER AND BINDBR 
1884. 



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